WinterPerkins.com

Traffic Exchanges are suffering financially. Less upgrades are being purchased, less real marketers joining for the sake of exchanging traffic. We’re beating a dead horse here, I think everyone is in agreement that Traffic Exchanges are hurting. We can talk about that fact until we’re blue in the face (which seems to be the popular thing to do), OR we can combine our efforts and find a way to move this industry forward!

As I write this post, I’m literally rubbing my forehead in frustration. I attend tons of conferences and the topic is almost always “Boohoo the cash surfing is destroying the industry.” Come on! Where’s the positive attitude that can move real manual exchanges forward into a new era? Where are the new innovative ideas to breathe life back into the exchanges for us that actually use them the RIGHT way?

We are still here; we are still surfing; we are still building our business! WE matter! Cash surfers/surfing purely to earn a few cents (sorry if this offends but I’m being 10000% honest) do NOT matter! They aren’t what keeps this industry alive, they’re not who should be getting the attention and energy that us real surfers rightfully deserve.

The conferences are a wonderful way to get a group of owners and surfers together to discuss the state of the Traffic Exchange Industry, and I love them, absolutely love them. But why does it have to be a group bitch session? Can we not use that time productively to work on changes instead of just collective griping?

We know cash surfing hurts the industry, we know people are investing less money into upgrades, credits. Now what? No amount of collective griping is going to change those issues. No amount of ranting is going to contribute to helpful ideas! Let’s think! Let’s do things that have never been done before.

If people are not spending money like they used to on upgrades, maybe it’s time to rethink upgraded membership benefits? Just because the structure and benefits of an upgrade have always been the same, and have always worked, doesn’t mean you don’t have to adapt and rethink them at some point.

It is the “This is the way it’s always been done,”  mentality that kills a business, that keeps it stagnant, from achieving progress and forward movement. I love the Traffic Exchanges, and I love the owners. It just breaks my heart to see the “lie down and take it” attitude creeping in. You guys are better than this! You’ve been here for years, this is YOUR industry! There’s nothing you can’t do here… so let’s do it already!

This is my public plea for the groaning and complaining to finally take a back seat to real thought, progress and innovative ideas that I know are just waiting and fighting like hell to be born. Let’s put the spotlight back where it needs to be, on us surfers that need for the Traffic Exchange industry to succeed, so that we can do the same. Cheers!

Popularity: 32%

My post yesterday on the Dirty Tactics of Internet Marketing and How To Avoid Them really sparked a huge conversation. Tons of comments, lots of emails, even skype messages thanking me so much for bringing this topic to light. Because of the huge response, today I’d like to share even more examples of the methods being used to prey on newbies. Keep your eyes peeled for this tricky tactics!

The False Sense of Urgency

The Lie

The Truth

The Lie

The Truth

The Lie

The Truth

Multiple Daily eMails

For some reason, this practice is becoming widely used and abused by many Traffic Exchange owners. You know the drill… you get your daily Traffic Exchange email, and not even 10 minutes later you get the “Oops I forgot blah blah blah,” or the “Oh I’m so stupid, I forgot,” mails.

Now I don’t mean to say that this doesn’t really happen. I’ve forgotten to include a link, or send the wrong link once in a great while. But every single day? Every single time you send an email you screw it up? If you are that clueless as to how to get your emails sent out correctly, with the correct information, that often… maybe you shouldn’t be running a Traffic Exchange or be in control of the mailings. I’m just saying… come on.

The REAL reason this is done, is because it keeps the site in front of your face. It brings more surfers in immediately. It gives them a reason to email you all day long instead of just mailing once and hoping more people read and act accordingly.

I’m confused as to why this is so effective (assuming that it is effective) because to me it is beyond annoying. Please don’t underestimate my intelligence by pretending to forget something in every single mail. Mail me once to let me know about your promotion of the day. If I like it, I’ll come surf; if not, I’ll pass on the promotion. Don’t bombard me with emails all day long because you didn’t get the results you wanted from your first email. Or at least title your email subject truthfully: “I didn’t get enough surfers in here with the first email, so let’s see how many fishies I can catch with this one!”

Exclusive/Private Invitations By eMail

While it’s nice to think you’re important enough to be invited personally to take part in a product or website launch, giveaway event, or seminar, trust me… we are not that important to the promoter! There is nothing exclusive about the emails you receive inviting you by “Private Invitation Only.”

Do not be fooled! These emails go out to every single subscriber on that list. You were not hand picked or personally invited. It sucks to find out your importance ranks about as high as anyone else on their list. The only exclusive aspect of these invitations are that you’re subscribed to this particular list… that’s it!

If someone wants to personally invite you to take part in anything, you’ll receive a personal email, a Skype message, a contact on your blog… not a mass email.

When you’re new, these exclusive invitations make you feel special, make you feel important. They do exactly what they are meant to do; make you stop, open the email, read it all, and of course jump into this private event! Don’t fall for it… it’s most likely 100% open to the public.

Exceptions

There will always be exceptions to the rule. When a program launches for the first time, it’s very likely they will have a launch special discounted offer. There’s a possibility that you really won’t see an upgrade offer this cheap again… so take notice of those, and take advantage if you can. If you can’t, you will see discounted offers later, maybe just not that cheap.

Humans make mistakes, we all do. It’s totally possible to forget a link in an email or even include the wrong link. Accidents happen, and that’s acceptable. I’m speaking strictly of the repeat offenders that are using this as a common practice on a regular basis. There is no truth in their “mistake,” it is total BS.

When you get a little more well known around here, you actually will get personal invitations to take part in website and product launches. It’s really exciting and an honor! If you do not get invited personally, it is not exclusive.. it’s a mass mailing, no more no less.

There are many, many tricky tactics used in Internet Marketing. These are just a few to watch out for. Be safe out there, and bring your boots. The BS can get extremely deep to wade through!

Popularity: 17%

Do me a favor… look at your inbox. Does it look similar to this?

**ALERT** Only 18 Left, 50% discount, less than 24 hours

Internet Marketing Just Got Replaced… UH OH!

Watch This & You Can Literally Be Making Money This Afternoon!

Winter, 1,000 Backlinks A Month. Really

These are actual subjects pulled from my personal inbox. Chances are, yours looks about the same. What’s all the hype about? Just marketing, plain and simple. Internet Marketing seems to be a world filled with dirty, back alley tactics, but is it really that much different from real world applications? Hardly!

Take a look at infomercials… they are geared to target you when you’re sleepy, your defenses are low, and they all claim to have the secrets of xyz, the most amazing thing ever, a product you can’t do without! By taking advantage now, we’re not going to charge you $100, not even $80, not even $60… you get all this for the low low price of $19.99. AND if you act now, you get xyz (a $50 value)… free!!!!!!

Now how familiar does this sound? Almost every marketing email in my inbox follows the same exact pattern. It’s something that will blow my mind, I can’t live without it, I get it for the low price of not $239, not even $99, not even $49… you get all this for the low price of $27 (maybe even free). AND for acting now I get a bazillion ebooks (that I’ll probably never read) included free!!!!!

See the connection? Marketing is a dirty job. Marketing is full of liars, full of fluffed up figures and stats, full of amazingly convincing ad copy designed 100% to get you to pull out those wallets, dig deep, spend it even if you don’t have it. These products (for the most part) are NOT designed to help you succeed; they are designed to make the creators money… period.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some really wonderful ebooks, programs and websites out there. I’ve gotten tons of help from the right books! There are many helpful tools out there, it’s just sifting through the crap to find the treasures.

Does marketing really have to be this grimy? Do you really have to sink to this level to be a successful Internet Marketer? The answer is NO! You can be successful by recommending products, services, and websites that you actually use, and that are helpful to you, thus will be helpful for your list.

The focus should not be on just making you a little cash here and there, the primary focus should be helping your readers succeed! Helping someone that is newer to this game than you are succeed in their efforts here is the best success you could have as a marketer. You might not make a sale on day one, you might not make a sale from that person within a month. That’s ok… you have made a friend, you have made a connection with another human being that now trusts your judgement, trusts your recommendations, your knowledge. That’s priceless!

Now that you’ve gained their trust, you could in theory promote anything semi-relevant that will make you some money, but if at any point, you take advantage of that trust and promote something you know will not be helpful to them, you’ve broken that bond of trust… good luck getting it back!

Sometimes it’s hard to decide what will be really helpful to newbies. Now I use the word newbies with all the love and respect in the world. We were all newbies at some point, and we just wanted some help and guidance! I used to wrestle with figuring out what to promote and what to let slide (even if there was a good possibility I’d make some nice cash). Here is how I help myself determine if it’s worthy of my list.

If my mom was new to Internet Marketing, and she had no clue where to start, what tools would I recommend? What websites would I push for her to advertise in for the best results?

If my best friend of 10 years said “Winter, what you do is amazing! I want to work for myself online too. Please, tell me what to do!” Would I recommend the product, service, or website in question to them? If it was a must have tool, and it was worthy of her attention, would I tell her it’s extremely important to upgrade, or could she get the services she needs as a free member?

These few questions really helps me put into perspective whether or not I’d like to advertise a product or service to my list. Are they my mother, are they my best friends of 10+ years? Of course not, but anyone subscribed to my lists deserve the same respect and consideration. They did not sign up to be taken advantage of. They did not signup to be used and abused and suckered into every opportunity that looks promising. They signed up because they felt the information I provide will be helpful, useful, interesting.

Your list is valuable for many reasons. Yes you will make sales from your list, and that is A goal, but it’s not the only goal. You want to be of value, you want to be helpful, you want to be a source of information that they can trust… today, tomorrow, 2 years from now. You might have a subscriber to your list that buys a crap product right away. Then what? If they don’t get anything out of their purchase that helps them further their efforts, how many more times do you think they’re going to join a program or buy a product on your recommendation. Not many, maybe not ever again, maybe they’ll even unsubscribe!

Treat your list with respect, treat them with dignity, show them the same consideration you would a dear friend. Building that trusting relationship is far more rewarding than making that instant sale. Recommend products, services and websites that you use AND have been successful for you.

It’s all about the golden rule: Treat others as you would like to be treated.

Marketing is a dirty job, but you don’t have to get filthy to see results. You don’t have to resort to scheming, underhanded, scammy marketing tactics to make a sale. You just need to promote from a place of honesty and integrity. The end results are priceless!

Popularity: 28%

Recently, I published a post about some amazing things I learned from Jerry Iannucci’s guest appearance at the Affiliate Funnel Conference. For those of you that don’t know, Jerry is the man when it comes to Safelist Marketing, and wrote a widely popular book called “Safelist Marketing Tactics.” If you still haven’t read the book, you can download it directly by clicking this link. Something you won’t find in the book, but that Jerry recommended highly at the conference, is a newer safelist, State-of-the-Art-Mailer. I have fallen head-over-heels in love with this safelist over the past couple of weeks! I want to share what I find are the coolest features SOTAM has to offer, and just how innovative Brad Webb and Jaye Pause (the creators) are. Other safelists will clearly have to bring way more to the table, or learn to be comfortable in SOTAM’s shadow.

What’s so special about SOTAM?

So there’s the super short version of what’s unique about SOTAM. Let me explain just how groundbreaking these features are.

Profit Sharing:

How many website owners do you know that are willing to share their profits with members? Not many! I’m not talking about commissions here folks, I’m talking about sharing the website’s profit with all active members! Do you find it hard to get referrals? How about getting those referrals to upgrade or buy ads? It can be as difficult as pulling teeth… from someone that has their mouth wired shut. With SOTAM, you do NOT have to referrals or be upgraded to earn a little money. You just have to be active in the safelist… that’s it! If you read 75% of the email ads you receive in that period (a month), you earn a share of the profits for that period. You won’t make a million dollars from profit sharing, but you can surely earn enough to cover an upgrade, if you choose to do so (which is a bigtime “worth it”). It’s super easy to check your activity level right from your member’s area, and the stats are always live. Here are my live stats from this morning (see screenshot below). SOTAM emails expire 6 days after being sent, so this Profit Sharing System keeps the members extremely active… brilliant!

Live Click Rate Stats:

You want to talk about transparency in a business? It doesn’t get any more see through than displaying your website’s real time, live advertising statistics. How many safelists do you know that are so comfortable and proud with their performance to display live, real time stats of how many of the emails are actually opened? Again… not many! The stats are even broken down to each Button Level so you can see exactly how each level is performing, and ultimately which is the best Button Level to advertise to. These stats are real time, they aren’t some fluffed up stats from 5 months ago. They show exactly how the safelist is performing today, right now, this moment! You can even see just how much activity has increased since SOTAM opened… killer stats to say the least. AND you can even click the handy dandy help question mark to see how to improve your Click Rates if they are falling below the average… love it!

Button Escalation System:

At first, this system is a tiny bit confusing. It was to me, but luckily Brad and Jaye created a video tutorial that explains exactly what it is and how it works. Because they explain it so well, I won’t go into some long detailed explanation here. As you click, you earn credits that build up and move you into a new Button Level. As you move up, you’re able to advertise to more members, and at a better performing level. I don’t like to click tons of mails, so I upgraded to a higher button level (which Profit Sharing can help me maintain). Now I can earn even more credits when I read mails, and it pushes me into an even higher level, thus improving my advertising efforts. This is another feature that keeps SOTAM so insanely active and effective. Huge thumbs up to Jaye and Brad for this unique feature!

Video Tutorials:

Safelists can be a little overwhelming at first, and with the amazing features built into SOTAM, it can be hard to grasp how to take advantage of them right away. SOTAM has short video tutorials for just about everything in the site. They’re not complicated either. I watch them once, I know what I’m doing… so simple. And it’s not a hard thing to do, make videos, but this goes to show you just how important it is to Jaye and Brad for you to succeed with SOTAM. Another huge thumbs up from me!

These are just a few of the features I really love at SOTAM. This post has quickly become a book, so I’ll let you discover all the other aspects that really just make this the safelist way above the norm. If you’re smarter than me, you’ll take notice of the upgrade offer when joining. It’s easy to make your upgrade payment back from the Profit Sharing, so take that into consideration… and if you can, take advantage of that offer. I promise you (from personal experience) you really won’t see it again lol. Feel free to join SOTAM below and quickly step up your safelist game.

Popularity: 22%