First wave gone! new price $15! till 10am GMT

I have uploaded a password protected post, in that post is an interesting article on getting hold of very niche specific email addresses for marketing purposes. It does not “hack” systems but could be considered a little greyhat when you combine it with some of the ideas in the article. The article also contains over 4000 Dutch email addresses and 400 Email addresses for working mums.

If you’re interested in this article and the other content then you can get it right now!

The price

• For the first 5 hours till 1am GMT 28th of March the price for this information will be - $10 a measly sum indeed
• For 5 to 15 hours (10am GMT 28/03) into the sale the price is - $15
• After that it’s $20

If you have missed out on the first discount prices don’t worry you can still get access to the post at the regular price.

Oh I’m also going to throw in a few useful additional goodies, because I’m such a nice guy!

To claim your access to this content simply make a Paypal payment to t.nash @ venture-skills.co.uk but remember to check the time if your close to one of the Firesale marks, when I receive payment I will send you the password to your Paypal address, if you don’t want the password sent to this address use the notes field when sending payment to provide an alternative.

Any questions or if you’re worried I might miss your Paypal content then feel free to email me, please use the subject let me in So I can respond quickly!

Not only that for those of you on the Mac Book Pro Challenge I will be doing a post after the sale on how to legitimately use your email addresses.

What are you waiting for, people are already staking their claim can you afford not to?

Don’t forget if you don’t manage to get access during the Firesale you can still get access at the regular price of $20.

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.

After some pretty terrible advice was being handed out over at Webdigity I thought it was time to look at Googles recent announcement that a Privacy Policy was required of course here in the UK this is nothing new as we have needed such a policy for years, how many people actually have one is another matter!

Anyway this is a short post so get your sample policy based on an early version its more robust then most and is in part built on the OIC Office or the Information Commissioner the people here in the UK who control data privacy policy. So hopefully it will be pretty solid. Given that most adsense users at least on Webdigity have more then one site the policy is designed to be global. so without further ado here it is the Tim’s quick guide to Google Adsense Privacy Policy

One final thing IANAL (I am not a lawyer) any serious commercial venture should seek professional legal advice so if your livelihood is based on Adsense (why?) then you should get a lawyer to help draft your documents

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.