Well Nick is in the army still doing his year long stint as a potato scraper extraordinare! While I have been engaged on a top secret project that only, myself and half the world have known about, but what is this top secret project well I can tell you this have you ever wanted a Wordpress Membership Site plugin that actually works?

Of course you do which is why you will run out and purchase Your Members in about 10 minutes time!

In the mean time I have managed to log back into PaymentBlogger so normal if somewhat erratic service will resume soon!

Cheers for the support and the emails asking about us, I can tell you as far as I know Nick is fine if a little bored thankfully the Greek Army is about as active as a sloth.

Before I forget Join the Cambridge New Media Affiliates scheme let me know you done so and I will let you in on some cool new ideas that will blow your minds.

This is part of the Mac Book Pro Challenge where we show you how you could get your own Mac Book Pro or some cash. Why not see how and join the challenge.

Last time on the challenge I discussed the idea of creating a persona to appeal to an audience I have also covered some aspects of Email marketing and making lists safe but I want to cover your legal responsibilities.

Before we start two disclaimers

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I am not a lawyer, seriously any queries on legal issues take it to a lawyer here in the UK if you are a sole trader why not try your local Business Link where they can put you in touch with a lawyer who can answer your questions often for no charge if it’s a simple generic enquiry.

This article refers to British Legal system, why? I am a Brit, but also the UK has one of the most stringent legal systems when it comes to business online. Most of its laws and regulations are similar to those in Europe and so is a good basis for marketers, while your own country may differ particularly in the US where its very much dependent on the state you happen to be standing in.

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Creating your Legal Notice paper work

I want to cover how to create legal notice paper work that will make even a lawyer be proud. So create a new page name it Legal Notices, Disclaimer Notices or something similar and lets get started.

Who are you?

Our first step is to determine who you are and how you are trading in the UK there are various levels of trader (similar for the rest of the world) but the basics are:

• Individual – some one who is perhaps a hobbyist makes and declares monies but also has an alternate revenue stream (pension/job)
• Sole Trader – A singular person who trades (has a business) which he is the sole person in charge of the finances and who’s business assets are owned by the person.
• Non Limited Partnership - As per sole trader but a group of people manage the company and its assets within an agreed legal agreement.

• Limited Company – A company that is registered with Company House, such companies are registered and must present their books to company house once a year.

Beyond Limited company there are several more levels but by that stage you are into high finance world and well beyond the scope of this article. Most people reading this and trying to make money online will be Individuals, you probably have a job and are after some additional money in which case legally all you have to do is report your additional earnings to the tax man. A Sole Trader and Partnership is legally required to inform the Tax man about individual earnings but nothing more. A limited company must report its finances as an entity to Company House and individual directors who draw money but not a salary from the company must record this separately. The big advantage of a limited company other then to protect a trading name is that the company debt is not always personal debt of the directors. If you are not a limited company debts accrued by the company are held against the individuals of the partnership.

One thing to hold in mind is the British tax system has perhaps one of the strangest laws attached to it.

“Under the UK’s Tax Avoidance Schemes Regulations 2006, it is illegal not to tell the taxman anything you don’t want him to know, though you don’t have to tell him anything you don’t mind him knowing.”

Basically this was designed to make it illegal to hide money deliberately, but to protect those who failed to make a complete tax return from harsh sentences but it is some what unenforceable but hey its worth remembering you don’t want to hide things from the tax man.
Before moving on it’s worth adding VAT a non limited business can be registered for VAT this is different from registering with Company House if the company is VAT registered it has implications as to what information you need to display.

Trading as…
Sole Traders and Partnerships often don’t use their names when trading, but in formal documents a trading name must be declared…

Tim Nash trading as CNMS

For example or in a partnership surnames are normally sufficient as long as the full partnership is named elsewhere so…

Nash, Hills, Johnson trading as CNMS

Owner of a web site

When you register a web site you can choose to register it as an individual, sole trader, partnership and limited company. With the exception of Limited Company the website domain name is the property of the person who registered it, unless it is agreed differently in a partnership agreement. The information on the Whois has to be correct, for a sole trader or partnership who are VAT registered this means the address you gave on the VAT return, a limited company your company registered address and for everyone else the mailing address of your business. Sometimes you may find you need to adjust these after purchase particularly if your address of your Credit Card was different.

Every web site should have contact information on it, apart from allowing people to contact you in nearly all cases as a trader it is required. However unless you are a VAT registered or Limited Company the amount of information needed is limited to a method of contact such as email address remember though this is purely on the web site itself the information is still needed in the Whois.

The Ecommerce Regulations require the minimum information to be kept:

• A Trading Name – example.com is the property of CNMS
• A contact Email – A contact form is not enough it must be a valid email address
• Registered Address if Limited or VAT registered – The complete address, plus the place of registration for Limited Companies
• VAT and Company numbers – If company has both then both need to be displayed.

Example Who Are You section

Sole Trader
Example.com is the property of Tim Nash trading as CNMS .
For more information please contact via info@example.com

VAT Registered Partnership
Example.com is the property of Nash, Johnson, Smith trading as CNMS
For more information please contact us via info@example.com
CNMS is VAT registered, number 00000000, Address: 4 made up street, PP33 SDK, UK

Disclaimer of Brands

Andy recently discussed some of the issues related to the UKs Consumer Protection Regulations which covers many issues including the not telling the truth or pretending to be something you are not. Given our last post was all about creating personas, people to sell our site we need to cover ourselves from the act. This section is also a good place to credit photographers and external brands even theme designers if its appropriate.

Example of Brand Disclaimer

Example person images, name and description are branding of CNMS, All images are the property of Joe Blogs Photographer and are licensed for use by CNMS all models are over the age of 18 and their images are used with permission. The site theme was designed by Joe Blogs and released under license.

This may not seem very fair and indeed it is only really dealing with the legality of the act, when designing personas it is important to make sure that potential buyers do not believe they are dealing with a specific individual unless of course they are.

Trademarks

This section would also be a good place to declare trademarks referenced and used. It is unlikely you hold trademarks so this section will be declaring their use on the site. Most Trademark use is when mentioning products which are owned by the company such uses are perfectly legal but you should declare the use of trademarks if you have not done so within Articles for example

Example of Trademark Disclaimer
Within the UK: Mac Book Pro, Apple, IPod are trademarks of Apple Ltd. Google Adsense, Logo are property of Google Ltd. Use of the respective companies trademarks is for product description purposes only. Other trademarks are used within guidelines of fair use when describing products or services and are the property of their respective owners.

Disclaimer of Facts

Do you know Lying is immoral right? Its also nearly always illegal to, the distance selling regulations along with unfair trading regulations pretty much make it illegal to misrepresent your product or service in anyway this includes but not limited to.

• Inflating earning potential
• not specifying sale length
• inappropriate description of services or product

One of the more problematic part of the regulations is that you are in breach if you attempt to mislead an average user even if you are factually correct. Put simply If you state the car is Green but in reality it is Green and Yellow you have breached the act as while you are correct it is green you have not fully described the product.

Example Disclaimer of Facts

CNMS takes every effort to accurately reflect statistics and products in a true manner, occasionally statistics and other figures maybe rounded or averaged to make them simpler to understand in such cases CNMS strives to notify the reader. Occasionally CNMS is unable for legal restrictions or other reasons to provide accurate figures in such cases the reason is given prior to the figures.

Descriptions and statements declared to be factually accurate are checked prior to release and every effort is made to maintain accuracy. If a statement appears not to be accurate please contact us via our address as stated.

CNMS can not be held responsible for misrepresenting a third party product or service if the description of the product has changed since the initial release of information.
The disclaimer is primarily to cover your interaction with third parties rather then your own products when it comes to your own products no declaimer page is going to help if you miss sell a product.

Disclaimer of Earning Methods

While not strictly required in every case most people are going to need to declare how the site earns money and in particular if you use affiliate links within reviews. This is also a good place to declare paid for links if you have any note this is not a legal requirement, it’s important to understand a company guidelines and requirements such as those from Google should not be confused with something legally binding. However a notice section is a good place to include such information

Example of Earning Methods

CNMS uses affiliate links (web links which associate sales of a product to CNMS) when linking to some products, offers and services on this site. In addition advertising in the form of images and textual links are bought such advertising are declared and the purchase of advertising does not influence the content on the site. CNMS may provide additional marketing and advertising methods to third parties.

If you are selling your user lists now is the time to declare it make sure you also declare it within your privacy policy and include opt out info there to.

Example of selling your users

CNMS from time to time will pass user’s details to third parties for use in statistical analysis and marketing. CNMS is not responsible for the content from third parties.

Links Policy

You can’t prevent people linking to you, and nor do you want to however its worth declaring you have no control on what they said about the site or product likewise you should indicate you do not have editorial control of external sites.

Example Links Policy

CNMS has no control over inbound links and will not honour prices, descriptions of products and services which are different from those stated on this site without prior agreement. CNMS links to external sites and does not have editorial control and is not responsible for their content.

Nice the good news is we are pretty much there now its time to add your Privacy and Accessibility policies.

Privacy Policy

I covered this not so long ago on WebDigity so will not go through the entire policy but to highlight it needs to match with statements here, including names, addresses. For more information please check out my sample privacy policy template.

Accessibility

UK and Europe have some tough anti discrimination guidelines but almost no one knows what an accessible site is though most agree it is probably a site that reaches WAI level 1 & 2 as set down by W3C. Most blogs should easily meet these requirements presuming your site does so your declaration should be fairly straight forward.

Example Accessibility Disclaimer

Where possible we try to maintain this site to WAI level 1 & 2 priority standard and well within the UK and EU disability guidelines however if you have a problem while reading or commenting on this blog please do contact us as described below.

Putting it all together, ok so this was a long post, but your complete policy should look something like our Legal Notice. This might seem like a lot of work and you may think that so few people read such documents why bother?

Two reasons 1) Ass covering, its the law and if its not where you are it will protect you against random law suits 2) Requirement, more and more affiliate and advertising companies are looking for privacy policies and declaring paid content.

Remember IAMNL (I am not a lawyer) any one making money should get a lawyer in their home country to read through any legal notice.

So the recent press headlines here in the UK have not been great for British Airways their brand spanking new terminal “T5″ has gone down like a lead balloon. The disaster now means thousands of bags are separated from their owners indeed many people even the most loyal BA customer I suspect are now thinking it’s time to look at what the other airlines are doing.

So it comes as no surprise that one airline is currently flying high. At the start of the year Virgin Atlantic started a £6 million pound advertising campaign to promote their new first class lounge and existing services at Heathrow. Now Virgin is a brand everyone is familiar with because of one guy but it has recently attempted to move the Virgin brand away from being the soul domain of Richard Branson and attempt to sell on the individual companies merits.

Affiliate Marketing with Virgin Atlantic

So what this got to do with affiliate marketing, well once you have started to get your first few cheques in, it’s worth putting some a side into a quick project slush fund. Not millions just a couple of hundred dollars for when events are just to quick to miss. So lets see how I would spend that fund right now:

1. Buy a domain name
2. Setup a quick mini site 3 pages or so on the current problems at T5
3. Create a dedicated landing page for Virgins new lounge
4. Base the headlines around the air line that gets you and your baggage their
5. Sign up for Virgin Atlantic 2 Affiliate schemes
6. Drive traffic

Buy a domain name

Domain names are cheap, so it’s worth setting the majority of your projects up on their own domain name for a $8 investment you have nothing to lose, if the project fails and or is similar to existing projects you can redirect the domain when you are finished for a little benefit from search engine traffic. When buying a domain name either keep it very generic or very specific, in this case be care to avoid domain names with Virgin Atlantic, Premium Economy or Upper Class in them as the Virgin affiliate program prohibits those terms. Given the current crisis and it will be in peoples minds right the way through the summer is baggage I would start there. Indeed flywithyourbaggage.co.uk is available from me if anyone is interested

Setup your mini site

We don’t really need to tell you how to do this part, suffice to say content, template rinse repeat. Find a suitable theme if your pushing the first class lounge aspect or Virigin all the way then Reds and Purple colour scheme will be your best bet. There is plenty of content out there, so use your imagination or scraper depending on your hat preference.

Create a Dedicated Landing Page

Or two, it really is worth creating specific pages dedicated to Virgins Services and those of others I’m using Virgin as the example, but let’s take Virgins Chauffeur pick up service, their are plenty of companies offering this service many with Affiliate Programs of their own. Each product your planning should have it’s own page. You might even want to consider a US to UK page and a UK to US version.

Sign up for Virgin Atlantic 2 Affiliate schemes

Following up from the 2 pages their are in fact 3 Virgin Atlantic Flights affiliate program and several others based round their credit cards. Both of the ones we are interested in for this article are run by the same company but require you to sign up twice. Why? Well the first is the UK based version of the program, this allows you to make money selling Flights booked from the UK to the US and to sign up you need to visit AffiliateFuture UK To make money booked from flights from US to the UK you will need the US version AffiliateFuture USA their is also a European option. Each program only pays out in its currency Sterling, Dollars, Euros and only by wire transfer. This is not a problem as your bank will do the conversions for you automatically just be aware when your looking at your currency values if you have never worked in multiple currencies before.

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GeoTarget - Given you are using two programs you don’t want a Brit accidentally clicking your US link so Geotarget this is not very hard you could use Nick PHP Class to make sure Brits only see the right code

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Drive traffic

You can drive traffic to your site via all the normal methods while the story is hot I would suggest PPC just be careful what you bid on. Terms such as Virgin Atlantic are out but Baggage Chaos is in. Focus on the terms that are topical today. Avoid things like Cheap Flights the cost per click certainly isn’t cheap. Ultimately while this example is a throw away site it could be a long term investment. Baggage going missing is a fact of life and people will be discussing terminal 5 for the next 10 years so don’t just use PPC build up more long term traffic streams and search engine traffic.

This was a quick example

This was an example in a pretty unsaturated market, but with a couple of hundred dollar slush fund and an eye on the news (ideally before the story breaks big time) you can make these sort of opportunist sites. Affiliate Future have an interesting range of travel related sites and I picked virgin because they are riding just so high at the moment. Just think in a few years time you could be promoting Virgin Galactic and making money off people going into space!

This post is part of the Mac Book Pro Challenge, but don’t worry it’s not to late to start, so why not join us?

Getting a face

Think of the Mac book Challenge as a marketing campaign the goal (ahem wish sorry) is to convince people to join in your version of the challenge by presenting them with the information, the incentive and the reason. Now for a little game who do you want to target?

Seriously its that simple forget careful keyword research or demographic studies go with your gut who do you think you can convince to join up and encourage their friends. The reality is just about any demographic over the age of 18 is going to be interested in a free laptop be they a student, a Gran or a Working Mum so which group do you think you can appeal to which group can you get your head in.

Once you got your target we are going to create a sales person an online persona who will front your campaign just like any good advertising campaign. Now before we even think about web sites etc I want you to think personal the key to a good campaign is when the person on the receiving end (believes) they are on a two way conversation.

So lets look at some social groups and try and decide the best person to front a campaign for each of them.

18-25 Male Students
You got to hand it to them by far my favourite source for this kind of affiliate marketing, they are generally poor, most want to get rich, nearly all want beer and they all like pretty young girls. Ok so a few sweeping generalisations there but on the whole pitching to sterotypes works even if its not politically correct.
Perfect Persona: Pretty Girl Next Door

House Bound Mum
Wants to earn a bit on the side, is more cautious about giving to much personal information away. Often looking for things to fill short gaps, ideas have to be pitched as not time consuming and not evasive.
Perfect Persona: House Bound Mum alternate: Dashing Gent

Silver Surfer
The internet is not just home to young, more and more elderly persons are getting online, highly cautious and much more careful with their details. The silver surfers are a great long term revenue source and have fantastic networking capability.
Perfect Persona: Silver Surfer

Affiliate Marketers
Strong willed and expecting a con, they have been there and done that however as they know the business they make great partners and can easily expand any affiliate network. In many ways they are the best and worst people to pitch to.
Perfect Persona: Me

These are all stereotypes and pretty generic in most cases like encourages like but such as the case of our 18-25 Male its not always the case. Once we have an image in our mind of our persona it’s time to go out and make them a reality.

Bring a persona to life

Your sales persona needs to be fleshed out; create a name, and find a suitable picture if you can’t use yourself try getting friend, family, local model to pose for you. If all else fails then look for a suitable photos online try to avoid the free stock photo sites like sxc.hu and instead look at sites such as stockxpert.com. The reason is simple buying an image or set of images that have been rarely downloaded means that the chances your model has been seen before is limited. Try where possible to get a few images which can be used throughout your campaign. Given that in our examples we are aiming to get people laptops it makes sense to promote with images of your model with a laptop.

Above all try to keep it real certain people are just not going to promote certain things, Jessica Simpson is not the next model for a free laptop. When using an image make sure the model has signed a model release form and that the image is licensed for commercial use.

The more details the more customers

The more people can be brought into the site the more likely they are to bite, this may sound a bit manipulative but that is what you are doing it’s what the local shops are doing. For the ultimate effect try using video, if you have access to your model, get them to record a personal greeting/ sales pitch. Developing a character with personality quirks does not take much, try to create a short bio, include 5 things your new persona likes and dislikes what star sign are they and age. The more the better even if you don’t use these details on the site it helps build a stronger character a more believable character.

What’s next?

Next post we are going to start building a suitable site as our main sales site, we will look at the various elements needed on the site and discuss how sites look can influence a person. Through out these next few posts I will be building a sample site for you to play with complete with persona (no you can’t use it) but it will help you to understand some of the ideas and psychology behind such sites.

This is part of the Mac Book Pro Challenge series, why don’t you join us and reach your goal.

Why start with a goal

Or better still what is your goal? if you said to earn money, then why are you looking to earn money?

For many the ultimate goal is to leave their jobs, live on a yacht, and go to fancy parties! This is probably described as a dream rather then a goal. I’m not saying you can’t achieve it after all humanity has an amazing ability to achieve and punch well above its evolutionary status so if we can all do it you can on a more personal level.

For now though lets concentrate on the first goal a milestone you can be proud of. Having a fixed goal allows you to be focused in your efforts it’s that little carrot to keep you on the path. It doesn’t matter if your writing a multimillion pound business plan or simply trying to diet after Christmas our life is driven by goals and milestones. You could argue that life itself is a sequence of milestones and goals, birth, marriage, (divorce), offspring, retirement, death sadly not always in that order.

Goals vs Dreams

So how do we determine a realistic goal vs a dream? are not all goals dreams until they are reached?

A goal without a plan is just a wish - Antoine de Saint-Exupery / Larry Elder

I would add a further extension to this famous quote goals with wishes are dreams.
A planned goal that relies on happen stance (winning the lottery) or without deadline or time scales relies on wishes you cannot plan to win the lottery, only how you would react when you win. Consequently such goals that contain wishes are dreams.

So for now I want you to put the dreams to one side and join me in the Goals.

Goal driven affiliate marketing

So bringing this back from the meta physical and back down to the affiliate marketing side of things why join an affiliate marketing scheme that doesn’t pay out per purchase/click?
The obvious answer is the sum is greater then the parts how many affiliate schemes pay $75 per signup? without you or the signer needing to spend a penny?
The answer is very few, of course the reason they can afford such high rewards is that very few people will reach them. Many people will give up at the 5 to 10 people mark. Out of those 2 will have not read the small print and were charged at least 1 month for a trial. Companies do not produce such schemes to lose money.

High reward low risk, I think for an affiliate marketer looking at the long game a high reward but with little or no risk is a sure thing. The problem is while the risk is low the result is time consuming. After all while $75 per signup is an amazing given what you have to do, sell one flat screen television for any major affiliate and you can be looking at 5 to 10 times that amount.

So we have to look at such things not in their value of a per signup but as a total, $1800 or indeed a Mac Book Pro! When I introduced the challenge I started by explaining how having a wireless laptop changed the way I live my life wow that’s a big thing, a piece of electronic changed my day to day life! But it really did I’m writing this down by the lake in my favourite spot, my wireless card is in and I’m on the internet. As its a beautiful day and I plan to be here a little while, I have brought along my solar panel to keep the laptop charged and my camera .

If you haven’t already experienced this sort of freedom might I suggest this as a great goal to start with? If not a laptop think of a singular item or service that will even in a small way change your life make it the goal.

A Goal without a plan…

Congratulations you hopefully now have a wish, it’s time to turn it into a goal with a plan, so let’s get started in the next part of the Mac Book Pro Challenge!

Mac Book Pro Challenge
For those following us on the Mac Book Pro Challenge is your wish/goal a Mac Book? if not what is your goal? If your not doing the Mac Book Pro Challenge why not? but hey even if your not defining a goal and having goals over monetary targets will inspire and encourage you.