Time,Money,Stop,Wasting,while, marketing Time IS Money -- Stop Wasting It

Automation technologies represent a fundamental aspect of any modern industry. The major types of industrial automation solutions, such as DCS, PLC, SCADA, and MES, are used on a large-scale in process and discrete industries.DCS technologie Awhile ago, I got an email from one of the "gurus" I follow and it shocked me. The gist of it was this person wanted to trade services for a household item.To say it floored me would be an understatement.What was worse was a few days later t

A while back I was mentoring a woman who happened to be on myfirst level in a multi-tier affiliate program. She was a singlemom with a low-paying job, trying to earn some money online tomake ends meet, so I was giving her a little extra time andattention. After reworking an ad for her and sending her somesuggestions as to how and where to use it, I didn't hear fromher for several days. I emailed her again to see how thereworked ad was working. Her reply? She hadn't even opened thefirst email because she was buried in emails from the various"paid to read" email programs she belonged to. She was spendingso much time reading emails for pennies (or less) each, that shehad no time left to make any real money! When she said that shedidn't want to give up on those programs, she no longer had amentor either.Reading countless emails for pennies is not the only way towaste time *not* earning decent money online. Here are a fewmore things to avoid.1) Joining *too many* affiliate programsThere are lots of good affiliate programs out there, with manyexcellent products and services to promote. Many people earn ahealthy full-time or supplemental income doing nothing butpromoting affiliate programs. So why do most people fail to makeany real money at it? Because they join practically everyaffiliate program they come across, and then dilute theirefforts by trying to promote them all, or become paralyzed bythe sheer number of choices and don't work any (or most) of them.The cure: limit yourself to no more than a handful of programs,at least to start. Of those, pick one to start with. Focus yourefforts on promoting that product or service until you begin tosee results -- sales, signups, whatever produces income in thatprogram. Then repeat the process with the next program youchose, and then the next, and so on. Pretty soon, you're anaffiliate earning machine! (Forgive me.)2) Using "canned" adsPractically every affiliate program comes with a supply of pre-written ads for affiliates to use, and practically everyaffiliate uses them. The result? Repeated viewing of the sameads over and over again causes potential prospects to becomeimmune to the offering. Heck, they become so immune to them thatafter a while they don't even see them. (And to be honest, someof the canned ads are so *bad* that even on first viewing,potential prospects don't respond to them anyway.) You can wasteyour time posting them, but few people will waste *their* timereading them.The cure: write your own ads. (Forget the "I can't write"excuse. If you can talk, you can write - period. Get over it.)There are plenty of resources online to teach you how to writeeffective ads, and many of them are free. Another free way tolearn to write ads is to read and study ads written by the pros.(Most advertisers and copywriters keep a "swipe file" of profit-pulling ads written by others. They don't copy them, but simplyrefer to them when they are in need of ideas or inspiration.)How to write ads is beyond the scope of this article, so I'lljust say this: Be bold, be different, and be honest. And thentest, test, and test some more. And if you really, really,really can't do it yourself, then hire someone to do it for you.You're in business, right? So invest a little in your success.(Note: some affiliate programs require you to submit youroriginal ads to them for approval before running them, so checkyour affiliate agreement first.)3) Promoting "company" or "replicated" web pages.Most programs provide their affiliates with their own companyweb page or affiliate url to promote. And most (unsuccessful)affiliates rush to promote these urls to their safelists (ugh)and post these company web pages on the hit exchanges like NoMore Hits, StartBlaze and the like. And just as with the cannedads, web surfers see these same pages over and over so oftenthat they become immune to them. Yup, BuildReferrals again.CashEvolution. MoneyMailer. Again and again, ad-nauseum. Look,company-supplied web pages have their place, but advertisingisn't it, so stop wasting your time humping them.The cure: Create your own web page to promote the affiliateprogram. As Dr. Ken Evoy (of the acclaimed 5 Pillar AffiliateProgram, SiteBuildIt!, Make Your Site Sell, etc.) teaches sowell, your job as an affiliate is to *pre-sell* your prospectson the product or service you're promoting, and then passingthem on to the company site for them to "close the sale."Everything you need to know about this process is coveredextensively in the "Affiliate Masters" ebook provided as a bonusfor subscribing to Marketing-Mentor. Enough said.4) Using "rotator" pages to promote multiple programs. You've seen, and maybe even used, "rotator" pages -- thoseprograms that *let* you to promote one url and have maybe 3, 5or even 10 different web pages shown in rotation. Never mindthat you're giving up prime real estate at the top of the webpage, where the rotator company puts their logo and their infoand their ad to get people to their business. You're alsodiluting your efforts by promoting too many programs at once.You can't use ezine or other classified advertising, because youdon't know which page will come up when someone clicks therotator link in an ad. Your left with something like, "Come playrotator-roullete; click this link and see which of my businessescomes up!" Most people load their rotators and put them on the hitexchanges, then wonder why they don't make any sales or getanyone to join their programs. At the very least, my friend,it's a numbers game, and the numbers are stacked against you.(See number 3 above.) We've seen those pages a thousand times.Number 1001 is not the charm.The cure: Dump the rotator pages. If you can't decide whichprogram to concentrate on, sit down and breathe deeply untilyour head clears. Then make a decision, follow the above advice,and stick with it.5) Relying on "hit exchanges" to do your marketing for youAs I touched on above, most people throw their affiliate orcompany web page on the hit exchanges and then expect the moneyto come rolling in. When that doesn't work, they figure theaffiliate program is at fault, so they join a different one andput *that* page up instead. After a few such cycles, theyconclude that hit exchanges don't work, and they either give upthe ghost, or they look for different ways to get people totheir "me-too" website.The cure: Hit exchanges can be useful, but not as places topost yet another "BuildReferrals" or "CashEvolution" website. (Idon't mean to pick on either of those programs; they are justamong the most over-exposed sites on the exchanges.) You shouldbe using the hit exchanges for one purpose only -- to build anopt-in email list that can be promoted to over and over again.Whether you're promoting an ezine or newsletter, a specialreport or training series, a free ebook, whatever, the goal isto have the viewer willingly and knowingly give you their nameand email address (at the very least, their email address) inexchange for what you are offering. You've probably heard it before, but it's worth repeating --your opt-in list is gold. Concentrate on building your list, andyour list will build your business -- and your income.6) Posting to FFA's and SafelistsThere was a time in ancient Internet history (2-3 years ago)when you could get modest results posting to Free For All pagesand Safelists. No more. These days all you get from them aredozens, even hundreds, of ads that (admit it) you don't read. Sowhat makes you think anyone is reading your ads? Why do youthink that even the owners/promoters of FFA services and manySafelists caution their members that they should open a "throw-away" or "junk" email account, because they're going to get a*lot* of email coming back at them? Many FFA services try to tell you that having your own FFAaccount is far better than just posting to FFA's, because thenyou get to send a confirmation email (usually containing yourad) to each person who posts to your FFA page. Of course, yourreplies are going straight to the poster's junk mail account,where it is usually deleted without even being opened. Face it,the only one's making money off FFA's are the FFA owners sellingyou their "service." Fuggedaboutit.Safelists are only slightly better, as *some* people (mainlynewcomers) do read *some* ads they receive. But for the mostpart, people join Safelists to post *their* ads, not read *your*ads. Most Safelist ads suffer the same fate as FFA posts --straight into the junk email account, from which they getdeleted without being opened. The cure: Forget the FFA's and Safelists. Spend a few bucks andplace that ad you've worked so hard on in an ezine or newsletteraimed at your target market. Write articles your potentialcustomers might find useful, and submit them to ezines thoseprospects might read. Work on your search engine positioning.Tweak your pay-per-click ads. You get the idea -- do somethingUSEFUL.There you have it -- some of the biggest time and money wastersyou should avoid if you want to succeed online, along with waysto spend that time wisely. Don't waste another minute -- getstarted today. Article Tags: Stop Wasting, Affiliate Programs, Most People, Themthe Cure, Rotator Pages