If I had to start over from scratch in internet marketing…
Yesterday one of my fans sent me a message on Facebook asking me what I’d do to make a million dollars online if I had to start over in internet marketing from scratch.
It was a good question…so I thought a lot about it last night.
Here’s what I’d do if I had to start out from scratch online
Since I’ve already learned how to identify a hot market and convert traffic in those markets (I gained all that experience from my affiliate marketing activities), what I’d do is pick one of those markets and attack it backwards.
The normal approach is to build a site and do a bunch of SEO, article submission, PPC, PPV, etc. to get traffic…
While I think this is the best approach when starting out to learn everything, now that I’ve gained more experience I’d take a different route.
My first step would be to build out an insane sales funnel
It’s finally sinking in to me how important a sales funnel really is. Simply put… it helps you make more money… a lot more. However it goes beyond that. By making more money per customer, you can afford to pay more money to obtain that customer. Obviously…duh… but I want you to really think about that. Say you can afford to pay $10 per lead because you have a serious sales funnel built up. Meanwhile, your competition can only spend $5 per customer…. who do you think will monopolize the paid traffic if this is the case?
So my first goal would be to create a low priced front end product with multiple high dollar upsells that I can chain together in a logical order.
My second step would be to build out a converting lead funnel
The next goal would be to build out an awesome lead funnel that converts my free prospects into buyers. Testing and conversions is where it’s at with this lead funnel. Test squeeze page conversions, test email headlines, test email formating, etc.
My third step would be to work on basic traffic generation
I’d then test my lead funnel and sales process with some basic traffic generation. Mainly with articles, PPC, and PPV – anything where traffic is immediate and can be turned on and off at will. This way I can get a general idea of how much it costs to obtain a subscriber and how much they will make me. Figuring out my numbers is what I am doing with this step.
Forth step would be to ramp it up
Once I’ve figured out my subscriber value, I’d start ramping up traffic by paying more money for the traffic. Since I know what it costs, ramping it up is just a matter of increasing your pay per click or views. I’d also search out any additional traffic sources that are easily obtained that don’t require much manual effort on my part.
My fifth step would be to recruit affiliates
Now that my traffic has been rolling in and building my lists, I would then focus in partnering up with performing affiliates one at a time. You might as well leverage what you’ve built to funnel in even more traffic 🙂
That’s really all there is too it… of course it’s more complicated than that but from what I’m learning now, it’s the most serious way to build a real online business in a very short time frame. If you work a few hours per day, you should be able to have this entire process mapped out in about 4-5 months tops. It’s a tad bit more risky than building simple affiliate sites, but the potential is far greater.
Something to think about when you’ve got a handle of affiliate marketing and want to take it to the next level 😉
-Dan Brock
BTW, I’m starting to get into this Facebook thing… If you have a Facebook account, It’d be awesome of ya if you could ‘like’ my fan page here. There’s an embarrasing but funny video on there of me I think you will get a kick out of!
I’m glad to hear this because I have been trying to expand my “sales funnel” on one of my information product sites. I’ve been trying to figure out how to make an autoresponder series that gets emailed to someone who clicks on buy now but doesn’t end up buying, and I think I’ve got it figured out.
“So my first goal would be to create a low priced front end product with multiple high dollar upsells that I can chain together in a logical order.”
I am assuming by “logical order” that your upsell won’t be represented as an automated, done for you version of your lower priced product when in fact it is not. Just food for thought, and a good way to cut way down on refunds for the upsells.
Sure… if that’s what people want at the time and your software automates an aspect of the front end product. That’s a perfect upsell assuming you aren’t offering a done for you product as your low priced front end which I think would definitely piss some people off.
I’m glad you posted this it gives me a better perspective on how to expand my own sales funnel and scale my business . I wish I knew how to recruit affiliates someone should come up with a course just on that … I’m serious I think there would be quite a market for it ….
So, Let do this now. You have us to help to get the word out.
Get off the couch (LOL) and create another product and the sales funnel from He||.
Thanks Dan for your plan. Makes a lot of sense to me. A great sales funnel is key to making big cash.
Thanks Dan, I found this post today because I am deciding where to “Start From Scratch”, and I was unsubscribing to a LOT of lists. Since I’m already a DeadBeat customer of yours, I decided to read this post coz it said “…if I was had to start from scratch….” (or something like that).
Catch-ya later dude!
Gary Anderson
aka- GanderCo
Good advice for beginers
Congrats on your mindset upgrade.Deadbeat Affiliate is a great product.Ibet success caught YOU by surprise. As laid back as you are, it probably took a while for you to find out about it. 🙂
Young people, this is a good way to get started, actually it’s good for us old people too. Although at my age I couldn’t hope to be able to party all night and create anything while lying flat on my back, much less with a laptop on my belly.
Senior citzens, it is ok to sit up staight when you work. And in my humble opinion it is OK to work more than one hour a day., Deadbeat isa great plan either way.
Ok, then we have to go to work. Working hole night here, hehe
Hi Dan,
Thanks for this. The sales Funnel concept is just what I need. I have several ideas for my own products and am now motivated to execute!
Great post Dan,
The only thing I would add from my experience is to take action on each step before trying to complete the entire product line and funnel.
Map out the funnel and strategy and take action to start.
Build/buy more products to sell as you move along.
Good is good enough – it will never be perfect.
Stick to your plan and continue to take action so you can make $$$$
as you’re learning and building. My stumbling block was trying to
complete everything in advance. Because nothing was ever completely
done, it was easy to chase the next shiny object at the end of the rainbow.
I have a client who told me in December that he wanted to hit the ground
running in the new year. I was talking to him yesterday and said, “If you’d
spent the time implementing that you’ve spent checking things out and
researching, you would have been making money on this a month ago.
Instead, you’re at the same place you were in December!”
Your course is very informative. And so is your new way of thinking. However, I would like to point out to you that most people that get into any form of IM are doing so to get money … obviously! But they are starting with no money and no experience so the long planning process and experimenting as the bills pile up is just unrealistic. I believe you see things this way due to your growth in the industry and probably wouldn’t spend months testing things if your bank account was empty. That’s the reality as I see it.
Great post Dan! Great advice.
@Nate funny but I just realized what you are trying to figure out, and it’s actually quite simple! When Simone clicks buy now, send them first to a page for their name and email address. When they submit it takes them to the credit card page and adds them to your autoresponder. Which you can have fire off a “sorry my buy now button isn’t working right” email. Offer them a bonus to go back and buy, maybe even get them to sign up as your affiliate if you have an affil program for your product. Send More emails as desired until you squeeze a sale even if the last attempt is for a $1 trial or even a $1 purchase. At that point the dollar is worth more than the no sale if it is your own info product, and they are in your funnel!
Interesting way to view it, Dan.
I think I just may re-visit my sales funnel…I don’t think it’s reached potential. It’s basically a 7 part email series, 5 content, 1 product related to niche and 1 more content.
It’ll just take some time to map out how I can add more content / products to the funnel.
Well that sounds cool n easy but it has been , usually the technical part i get stuck in. Who else? Like It is easy to say put up WP blog , but what good is it without all the Plugins that help it rank?
How do we do that ?
S.N
Hi Dan
I was recently at a seminar in London and that was what the speaker was emphasising. I have the framework of my sales funnel and just trying to test the squeeze page and ebook sales before including upsells and downsells. Definitely out of my comfort zone but like you say the rewards could and will be worth it.
Cheers
SO……WHO taught you…..?????????????
@Sergio,
You’ll find a great list of WP plugins, listed in the plans of the third-place winner of Dan’s $2,000-in-a-month contest:
http://www.dantheinternetman.com/youve-got-30-days-to-make-2000-in-profit-online-with-internet-marketing-what-would-you-do/