Do You Owe Someone Cash for Your MP3s?

You may have received emails over the weekend to buy a new product that converts audio files into a non-mp3 format because apparently, if you make any money from distributing mp3s you owe the patent holders of the mp3 technology some royalties.

Hmmmm...I don't know. I wouldn't buy into the "scare tactics" without some serious research.

I'm not a technical person, nor am I a lawyer (thank goodness...just kidding!), so have a read through this thread on the Marketing Secrets forum and see what you think. I wouldn't rush out to buy any alternative software just yet.

Feel free to leave your thoughts on the subject in the comments area below.

Affiliate Marketing Bribery

You’ve seen it many times…people offering outrageous and huge bonuses for buying products through a person’s affiliate link. It often happens with big ticket Internet marketing information products, software, etc.

Heck, you’ve even seen me bribe people to buy through my link. ;)

I’m wondering what you think about this kind of “bribery”…or if you even consider it bribery. I’ve seen people speculate that affiliates do this on high-ticket items because they wouldn’t sell otherwise. They say the products are over-priced, so affiliates have to offer the extras so they will sell.

This may be true in some cases, but I don’t promote big ticket items that are crap and won’t sell on their own. In fact, I have been promoting a $997 product you may have heard of and for 7 months I didn’t offer any bonuses because I knew the product didn’t need any extra “bribes” for it to be worthwhile. That product was Traffic Secrets and according to John Reese, for a number of those months, I was one of his top affiliates selling the product during that time.

So, why do affiliates “bribe”?

Well, I can’t speak for all affiliates…but one big reason is that the market is competitive and they need to give incentive to buy through their link, instead of somebody else’s. It’s just smart marketing.

But I’ve seen people go overboard with this, in my humble opinion. People create “bonus packages” that are valued at a cajillion dollars and contain a bunch of products that aren’t really related to the affiliate product being promoted.

All I can say is why I do bonuses and how I approach them…it has worked very well for me, so feel free to use these ideas for your own affiliate marketing.

I decided to join the “bribery” bandwagon because I figured I had something to offer people who bought these products. Over the past few years, I have learned that quality information products and software can dramatically cut my learning curve and help me make a lot more money. In the case of Traffic Secrets, I was able to take my business from earning 4-figures per month to breaking the 5-figure monthly barrier with a vengeance. Now, if I could do that, I could certainly help others try to achieve the same goals…so I created a special Traffic Secrets Offer.

If you look at that offer, you’ll notice that the bonuses I offer are DIRECTLY related to the products itself and they are completely unique to people who buy the product. They can’t buy the product anywhere else, giving them more incentive to buy the product with me.

But more than that, I constantly follow-up with my referrals on products like this. Not only do I continue to provide more marketing information to them…I’m also one of their biggest cheerleaders and keep them pushing forward.

I know what it’s like when you purchase an expensive course for the first time. You’re excited at first and then suddenly, you think – “What have I done? Was that a mistake?” I’ve also had a number of my referrals experience this and they’ve told me that my encouragement and help has kept them going.

So, for me…giving the bonuses offers a competitive edge, but it also adds value to the already great product. This coming Tuesday, you’ll see Jason Potash launching his Article Announcer software/course and you’re going to be bombarded with emails and special offers. Check out the offers and see what people do to encourage you to buy through their link. Some of the offers are going to suck, but some will be quite compelling. Learn from those.

And yeah…if you’re on my mailing list (and I hope you are – the sign up box is on the top right of this page), I’m going to email you on Tuesday too. Jason has created an amazing product and I believe would be a disservice if I didn’t tell you about it. Whether you buy it or not, check out my “value-added-cheerleader” offer (it will be ready Tuesday morning) and see how you can incorporate some of these ideas into your own marketing.

So, whatcha think? Is it bribery or just smart marketing? Can you use this for your business too?

Alice "White Hat" Seba Has Been Banned

Look at this...3 blog posts in less than 36 hours. That's not a common occurrence for me, but I had to come back because something happened that I thought you might want to know about. This has NEVER happened to me in the history of my online career, so I was a bit shocked.

One of my websites has been banned by Google.

I haven't a clue why it happened. In fact, I didn't even know that it had happened until my friend, Derrick Pizur sent me a private message yesterday asking me about it.

Well, very surprised, I checked it out. I saw that I had no PageRank and when I tried to look for pages from the website in Google -- there were none. The site had completely disappeared form Google.

I did some investigation and discovered it must have happened on May 21, 2005 because my visitors instantly went from about 700-800 per day all the way down to 200-250. This site made half-decent coin through Google AdSense and affiliate programs, so you'd think I would have noticed.

Fact of the matter is - I didn't notice. I had no clue. I've been busy over the past few weeks and wasn't looking into my individual site stats. All I knew was that my overall income remained steady, so I saw no reason for concern.

Let me ask you this question. If your website suddenly lost 500 - 600 visitors per day, what would it do to your bottom line? Even though I'm hoping you'll say it wouldn't affect you much, I'm guessing for most people, this would be a huge hit to their profitability. :-(

So, what's the lesson? Well, clearly - don't put all your marketing eggs in one basket. Whether it's just having one promotion method for your business or just relying on one website to build your riches...diversify and continue to build.

Of course, if you're just starting out you need to concentrate your efforts to get your 1st project profitable...but never use one method to drive traffic to that project. If one traffic source dies, make sure your business doesn't die along with it.

It makes me think about the "Shocking Report" that has been circulating for a week or two from Jason Potash (whom I just mentioned in my blog entry just yesterday) about people dropping like flies of search engines. If you haven't had a chance to look at, I recommend you do so.

And please note - my site wasn't even one of those auto-generated junk pages Jason talks about in the report. It was a site full of good and useful content and yet Google decided to obliterate me...so don't think it can't happen to good people like you and I.

Here's the report in PDF format:
http://www.aliceseba.com/trafficreport.pdf

This is Pretty Cool - Free Traffic

I love free traffic....I guess you do too, right?

Jason Potash just posted a really cool interview on his blog that might interest you. On his June 20 entry, he has an interview with an average guy who released an ebook, gave up "optimizing"
his website...stopped paying for pay-per-click advertising a few weeks later... and as a result, his sales conversion shot up to a healthy 3.5%, and he is making way more cash now.

Here's the blog entry (look under June 20)
==> Free Traffic mp3 here

This Seminar Almost Killed Me!

Well, I'm back from Miami and I have to say the Gary Halbert & Mark Joyner Fusion Seminar almost killed me and forced me to change my usual seminar habits.

#1 Seminar Habit: When I go to seminars, I usually take very few notes. It's not because the information isn't useful, but I have a weird "idea filing system". I only write down a few key ideas that I will take action on when I'm done because I find when I have too many notes, I procrastinate from taking any action at all.

My philosophy is, "If I forget it, it's probably not important anyway." Well, darn it all if I didn't walk out of there with more than 10 pages of notes and a wicked action plan. Now, 10 pages may not seem like much, but please realize that I usually leave a seminar with a few chicken scratches on a notepad.

#2 Seminar Habit: Networking is a huge part of why I (and everyone should) attend offline seminars. What happens after seminar hours is often even more powerful than what happens in the seminar room. I learned this quickly and learned to pick and choose the sessions I want to attend and usually sleep in a bit, so I can stay up for late night networking.

Well, damn it all - Gary, Mark...along with Michel Fortin & John Carlton delivered such great content, I couldn't afford to miss a single minute. This meant I was up late every night networking and up bright and early each day to resume my student role. But amazingly enough, I didn't fall asleep in class like I did back in college. ;-)

It all nearly killed me! My writing hand got all cramped up and I got almost no sleep...but it was well worth it. BTW - A little birdy told me that the CDs and DVDs will be made available of this event and I highly recommend you snatch it up when they're released.

A few people have asked me if I have any photos of the event and I'm sorry to say I don't. I was so wrapped up in everything that was going on, I forgot my camera in my room every time. Next time, I promise.

Did You Know...

...that the Alice FAQ is open? I mentioned it to my subscribers and have been letting people in slowly, but it's still very much a work in progress and was a LOT more work than I imagined.

After countless glitches with Mambo (my content management system), I'm finally getting the hang of it. But I do have to say some of the glitches were my own "brain-glitches" and not always Mambo's fault. Thanks to Lynette Chandler for her patience in making things just right for me and for answering my repetitive questions over and over again with a smile. ;-)

My assistant Heather (who's about to have a baby any second!) has been working tirelessly by entering a lot of questions into the CMS, so I can answer them faster. I'll keep working at it and as long as you keep sending me questions, I'll keep answering them.

One more thing - clearly, I don't know everything about marketing online and would never make such a claim. In fact, one of my favorite things to say is, "I don't know," so I can't get in trouble if I make a mistake (hee hee)...so if you know something, want to add a comment or anything, feel free. The Alice FAQ is not all about what Alice thinks...it's more like a little community that you are welcome to any time.

Go there now ==> Alice FAQ

Marketing to Moms in Business is Retiring

Last year, I did a live teleseminar series teaching people to market their business products to work at home moms. The live series sold out within a week, but I was able to offer the recordings for sale afterward. When I created the course, I said I would limit its circulation to ensure not too many people had the information.

Well, the time has come to stop circulating it. I'm retiring this product on June 15, 2005. When I announced that on my forum today, I received a few emails asking, "What's in the course?" and I'm happy to give you a good glimpse of what's in there. In fact, whether you buy the course or not, just checking out the free preview will give you an excellent foundation on how to market business products to moms.

Grab your free copy here:
http://www.marketingtomomsinbusiness.com/freecourse.pdf

Slapping on the Sunscreen (Lots of It!) & Heading to the Beach

If you don't know it already, I love people! :-) I love meeting other online entrepreneurs, whether it's an online or offline networking situations. In fact, I've traveled great distances just to meet other Internet marketers. But you know what, hanging with the locals is great fun too.

Today, I'm heading to the beach to have lunch with fellow Traffic Secrets student, Sheila Martin. I look forward to sitting in the sun (Yeah, if you know how pale I am, you might think it's a bit dangerous. It's preparation for Miami, you know!) and chit-chatting about marketing and life in general. It's so nice to get together with somebody who understands what you do.

I have a little network of Internet marketers I like to connect with locally, but I don't do it nearly enough. I'm trying to change that. Last week, I met Vera Raposo for breakfast and we had a great brainstorming session. I look forward to getting out for lots more "marketing in the sun" this summer.

Do you hang out with any local marketers or have you even tried to find them? Whatcha waiting for? ;-)

The World Has Lost a Great Mentor - Corey Rudl 1970-2005

I'm not going to say much here because I'm not good at this kind of thing. I am deeply that saddened to hear that Corey Rudl of the Internet Marketing Center died yesterday. I didn't know Corey (met him only very, very briefly in Washington D.C. only a few weeks ago), but learned so much from him in the past couple of years.

Such a shame that such a young life had to end so early.

The story is here.