Branding, branding, branding, and more branding. It’s what we hear all day, every day. “It’s most important to brand yourself!” Of course it is. I think just about anyone can understand why it’s so important to brand yourself and build trust within our Internet Marketing / Traffic Exchange community. The concept is simple really. Show your face, show your name, chat with people, recommend solid programs or services… over time that builds trust. Very straight forward formula.. but my, oh my, how unfortunate it is that some people are still not really getting it.
In my quest to win the iPod at I Love Hits, I spent hours surfing, and I was blown away. It was amazing to me to see how many people have been listening to the importance of personal branding, but are implementing it absolutely the wrong way. It seems like people are taking to heart the lesson of putting their faces on the pages they promote, but they’re still not using a squeeze page to build their own personal list. I can’t count the hundreds of pages I saw with a face… but just promoting some random program or Traffic Exchange. Make no mistake, yes you are branding your face… but you are still building someone else’s business! Let me repeat that… you are still building someone else’s business. You are just changing the way you advertise for their business.
Think about this for a second… someone see’s your face, they go “Hey that’s Bob, (insert any Traffic Exchange name here) must be a great TE! I’m going to join!” That’s the result you want right? WRONG, oh so wrong. While your face IS becoming familiar to other surfers, you are still only gaining referrals into other people’s businesses. Did you capture their information so you can contact them later with other launches, your own projects, anything at all? Absolutely not.
I hear you already…. “But Winter, some programs allow you to contact your downlines.” Yes, you’re right! And you should, even if only to ask them if they have questions about the program, look to you for how to use the program, etc. But if that program tanked tomorrow, would you still be able to contact that person on your own list? Most likely not… why? Because they joined under you in a program, they never signed up to your list, remember? Tony Tezak has a wonderful story about just this same scenario. He built up a ton of referrals (thousands upon thousands) in a particular program. The program disappeared and he lost contact with upwards of 50,000 referrals! Can you imagine the devastation and frustration when you realize all of the promoting, all the building, all of the hard work was for nothing? Unreal!
Jon Olson shared his personal EasyHits4U stats with us just the other day on TE Live. He has close to 28,000 members in his downline… yes that’s twenty eight THOUSAND. Do you know how much he’s made from those referrals over the years? $14… fourteen measly bucks! If you look at those figures, and you still think it’s in your best interest to use your credits to advertise other Traffic Exchanges, there’s probably nothing that could change your mind until something goes terribly wrong.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with building referrals in great programs, but do it on the back end… AFTER you have them on your list. I don’t want to sound like I’m harping, because I made this mistake many times. When I started using Traffic Exchanges, I didn’t have an autoresponder, I didn’t have a real goal. I used all my credits to promote splash pages for other Traffic Exchanges, Safelists, etc. with the sole purpose of getting referrals in those programs. I did this for well over a year, so I do understand. We all love referrals, we all love commissions, but if that’s the ONLY thing you’re getting from your advertising efforts, I’m sorry to tell you… it’s all for nothing. There’s no finish line, there’s no real reward, there’s no pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.
If people see your face on a splash page, and that fact alone makes them follow you into the site or program you’re promoting, they will most definitely follow you into your list too! Your brand has immense power… use it to benefit YOU, not your favorite Traffic Exchanges. I’m sure the owners appreciate your time and effort in helping to build their business, but every single one of them (if they’re honest about how to be successful online) will tell you, you’re doing the wrong thing.
If your face is powerful, how about using some of that power to make sure you continue to be successful online. If you use your face to get people into your list, promote your favorite programs & services in followup emails, you will reap benefits that reach way beyond a few bucks from a referral upgrade or credit purchase. You are in control of how little or how much you make online… so use your personal brand wisely, and learn to use it the right way!
In the spirit of list building and personal branding… please don’t forget to use the little box in the top right corner over there to subscribe to my list so you never miss a blog post! 
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Awesome post and I absolutely cannot add anything to it. I’ve been planning to write about Jon’s EH4U stats this week too and the tenuous (and mostly unprofitable) effort working hard to build up TE lines, maybe if the message keeps getting out there, folks will finally start to get the message.
I really hope so. If I didn’t think that building referrals on the front end was a lost cause before, I definitely believed it after seeing those stats. See I’m stubborn lol so I tend to learn all my lessons the hard way, but I do know there are some people that will actually listen. My message is for those people! Hopefully save them some heartache and frustration.
Hi Winter.
While I agree that the best way to promote on traffic exchanges is to build your brand and build your list people are at all different levels of experience. It’s easy to slap your picture on a splash page but many people still don’t understand the value of a building a list. Maybe they can’t afford an autoresponder, don’t know how to make a squeeze page, or they just don’t know what to do a list once they have it.
I would say that if you are not building your list you should at least be branding yourself on splash pages. It’s like investing in your future stock. You might not be promoting the best pages right now but at least your are getting your face out there. In a few months when you start getting serious and are looking for subscribers to your list hopefully people will already recognize you and start to trust you.
That’s a good way to look at it Jerry. I guess it is in a way putting stock in your future. As long as you’re planning to do bigger and better things in the future, it CAN be a good place to start. If you don’t fall into the comfort zone and become happy just with the amount of referrals you’re pulling in.. that could be dangerous.
I saw a few people (won’t name names) that have been around long enough to where they should be in an advanced stage, focused on list building finally. And still just splash pages. I saw a couple of faces promoting 10-15+ different programs/sites. How can you possibly make a living when you’re spreading yourself so thin. It was just really frustrating, and sad at the same time.
Thanks for the comments! Definitely some great additional thoughts.
Nice Winter!
Yup, 14 bucks. Out of 28,000 referrals. I think the real power is of course the branding. I’ve been on the soap box about for years and for so many good reasons!
Great post. Love it!
Thanks a lot! I think your’s and Tony’s stories should be enough to at least make people stop and think about what they’re advertising on the front end, and if it will pay off.
Hey Winter awesome post. You’re right branding is much more than a face in a splash page – its actually everything you do – from what you recommend, how you interact with your subscribers, how you use banners, how you respond to requests for help – all those things are part of branding.
Programs like Instant Splash page have made it easy for people to get their face seen, but that’s the easy bit – creating a point of difference and a solid reputation as a serious player can take a long time but consistent branding of yourself as principled, honest and serious will ultimately pay off
Thanks so much for visiting again Mark & for the words of wisdom. I’m so guilty of doing this same exact thing.. and when I read back on my post, it almost sounds discouraging but I really meant it to be ENcouraging.
I think we’ve all made these mistakes at some point or another. I’ve made quite a few myself that has affected my personal brand. In fact I was just getting ready to submit one or two on YOUR new blog post (awesome by the way and so brave!).
Fortunately and in some cases unfortunately, we are all judged on our actions, what we recommend, what we say and do on a daily basis. We all fail, it’s how we learn… but I think it’s how we rise from the ashes of our stupidity that really shows our true character.
Wow Winter, nothing like a dose of the shocking truth! Great article.
There really is a right way and a wrong way to brand yourself. You can actually really hurt your image by putting your name to a product. Be sure you review it yourself and give honest feedback.
If someone buys off your recommendation and it turns out to be crap you can be sure they are going to remember you and never buy from you again! It’s the horrible truth, be sure you check things out before you recommend them to others. Do a good job and you will be sure to gain those loyal repeat buyers we all are after.
Absolutely Sean. I think we’ve all recommended a few things along the way that we wish we hadn’t in hindsight. That’s acceptable because we make mistakes. It becomes an entirely different issue when ALL you ever promote is junk.
I’m going to give an example, and it might ruffle a few feathers but I’m ok with that
Kenneth Kraakstad. Now I can’t say anything about him as a person… he’s never done me wrong, he’s never scammed me, etc. But the amount of complete junk that he advertises AND creates (every few weeks), just really turned me off after a while. As a result, I deleted myself from all his websites so that I wouldn’t have to receive any more of the mails.
It’s just one example for me. Thanks for sharing Sean, you made some great points!