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John Reese just released the third and final launch video as part of his Traffic Secrets 2.0 release.

You can watch the video here -

I just finished watching it and it was great stuff, just like the first two.

In case you missed John’s first two videos released last week, make sure you head to this page to watch them before watching this one, they follow in a sequence.

http://www.trafficsecrets.com/home/

Marketing With Software

Something very few people implement as an online traffic technique is to build software applications. I will stick my hand up as one of those people too and after watching John’s third video I am REALLY excited about the potential. I was busy taking notes during the video, jotting down ideas for software apps I would like to make as marketing tools for my current projects.

It’s clear John thinks big when he considers how he will generate traffic. The application of a successful software marketing strategy can result in hundreds of thousands to even millions of visitors - we’re talking mainstream big, maybe not quite Facebook levels, but at least within the same playing field as some of the most popular sites in the world.

I can see why this strategy is so powerful. Very few people do it and even fewer execute it well if they try. If you can - as John suggests - make an online user-content generated software application, the potential for growth is tremendous.

Video Breakdown

John begins the video with strategic advice regarding why this tactic works and how he has implemented it himself in the past, then presents real world suggestions for software applications and offers tips on how to find the people to build the software for you.

I won’t reveal everything from the video, but a couple things I thought worth repeating even though they might seem obvious to some when creating software are -

• Test programmers with a smaller project first regardless of how good their ratings may be within a freelance site
• Create extremely detailed specifications for your project

There’s a lot more advice and some great suggestions from John that I know will spark ideas for you while watching the video, so make sure you take notes when inspiration strikes. Here’s the video link again -

http://www.trafficsecrets.com/home/v3.html

The Sales Pitch You Just Have To Watch

The second half of the video is the sales pitch, since obviously John is promoting his new training program Traffic Secrets 2.0.

What’s interesting about John’s pitch is how he’s decided to go opposite to what’s been prevalent in the last few years with Internet marketing product launches. He’s done a completely soft approach, there’s no upsells, no forced continuity, no false scarcity - pretty much any grumble people might have had about “marketing gimmicks” and John’s decided to blatantly state that he’s not doing it.

This in itself is a clever marketing tactic but it’s the execution that has to be watched. John has a very professional and clean-cut presentation style. It’s a serious presentation (no Frank Kern or Ed Dale antics here), John’s serious about his business and he’s put it all together in a video that gets the message across without any hyperbole.

And it’s worked on me - I want this product, bad.

I want it because of the videos I just watched. I want to learn John’s traffic tactics and also copy how he markets things. With John Reese you study what he says and how he says it.

John’s presentation style suits me. I like the soft sell, I use it myself all the time and I expect it’s going to pay off for him, especially as he’s priced the product lower than recent launches.

Traffic Secrets is just $397 for the product and access to any future upgrades.

During the second half of the video you will see what exactly is inside Traffic Secrets 2.0, which includes some DVDs and manuals and access to an online training resource. It’s sort of a melding between a home study and an online community, which is a nice approach.

The product goes live Tuesday 15th July 12 Noon EST and I’ll be there to buy my copy for sure.

Even if you have no intention of purchasing this, go watch the videos, see how video and a soft approach to selling can work and learn from both the content within the video and the strategy behind the video.

Here’s that link one more time:

http://www.trafficsecrets.com/home/v3.html

Yaro Starak
Borrowing John’s Ideas

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The prelaunch phase of a product launch in many ways is more important than the actual launch itself. During this period you have to decide what to give away, if anything, what marketing message to focus on, how to source the content and how to distribute it.

A successful prelaunch is all about building excitement and anticipation, but also - and this is critical - cutting through the noise and grabbing people’s attention through the power of your message.

You also use prelaunch content to address the major issues affecting your potential customers and deal with any justifications they may have for not purchasing your product.

The New Blog Mastermind Prelaunch

This week I’m about to kick-off the prelaunch for Blog Mastermind and I’ve been thinking about what to present as a demonstration of how much my training program can help people really leverage the power of blogging.

The Blog Profits Blueprint is available but I won’t be using it as my only launch tool. I certainly recommend it to everyone as the best introduction to the world of making money from blogging and as a great taste of what the full Blog Mastermind program is about, but if I want to make an impact I need something fresh - new ideas and new media.

Concepts For A Successful Prelaunch

Read the rest of this entry >>

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I’m back in Toronto now, returned from Las Vegas and Chicago. By the end of my trip I was really itching to get back to full time work, so I’m happy that the rest of this month is all about the Blog Mastermind launch.

No doubt all of you who had even a tiny interest have watched John Reese’s Traffic Secrets video. Most people were impressed by it and based on some of the comments I’ve seen floating around, people feel that John has certainly had an impact on what we consider good product launch video.

What Content To Launch With?

A few months back I was thinking about what great resources I could come up with for the opening of Blog Mastermind.

The Blog Profits Blueprint has a been a huge success and the best launch resource for Blog Mastermind I could ever hope to come up with.

I was thinking of updating it for the reopening, but after looking at the document, besides a few minor updates, there’s not much I’d want to change about it. It’s still very current. If I added to it I might turn it into a long winded extension, and I like how succinct it is now.

My next thought was to use video. Video is definitely performing great, all successful launches are using it and since I’m eager to improve my video production skills, video seems the right choice.

It’s because of this that a few weeks ago I switched to Mac, which has much better video tools than Windows and now after more than a month with it, I can honestly say is a much superior operating system, especially better than Vista, which is an absolute monster and crashes constantly.

How To Make A Splash With Video

After watching John’s video my heart sank a little because there’s no way I can compete with his production quality given the time frame I have. However, I think powerful content even without the flashy sound and video effects can still make an impact, so I’m not too concerned. The most important thing is to really hit on some key concepts, which I think I can do.

I’ve become proficient at ScreenFlow for Mac, which is just a breeze to use. I’ve already recorded two behind the scenes videos and this week I’m going to put together the main presentation.

I’ve been thinking about the merging of the Blogging and Internet marketing worlds a lot since I straddle both with this blog. I think there’s things to be learned by groups on both sides of the fence and that is where I intend to focus the video presentation.

I can’t talk about it too much now since I’m just formulating the concepts, but you won’t have long to wait, I plan to have this out this month, July.

Bloggers Need To Become Better Business Builders

There is one point I will end with, which I think is a core issue. Most of the Internet marketers I know are much wealthier than bloggers, yet they don’t really work any harder.

The day to day activities a business owner completes result in much more financial success because of what model they choose for their business. Bloggers unfortunately choose a model that is much harder to become long term wealthy with.

I covered this topic in much depth in the series I wrote on whether professional blogging is a sustainable business model. This series is VERY relevant for what I am going to talk about in the video. I strongly recommend you go through these articles either for the first time or as a refresher if you have some time over the next few days.

Here are the links -

• Is Professional Blogging A Sustainable Business Model?
• Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Professional Blogger?
• The Advantages Top Bloggers Have That You Don’t
• The Key Resource For A Sustainable Blogging Business
• Is This The Only Sustainable Blogging Business Model?

If you like where these articles are heading and you are ready to build a real business through blogging, stay tuned, I have some killer stuff coming out.

Yaro Starak
Business Blogger

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John Reese has released the first free video for the launch of Traffic Secrets 2.0. I just finished watching it and it’s good stuff, all content and presented in a very cool style.

You can check it out for yourself here -

John is a guy who has a huge reputation in the Internet marketing industry, most notably for his Traffic Secrets 1.0 launch from several years ago that grossed a million dollars in one day. That event kick started the mainstream adoption of the product launch style of marketing that is still in use today.

You may also remember John from BlogRush, which for many people turned out disappointing in terms of delivering traffic, although I still have it on my blog because I like to use it as a tool to find similar blogs to my own.

The video John just published is the first in a lead-in series of videos for the release of the updated, Traffic Secrets 2.0 course. The world of traffic generation has changed a lot since John taught people in his first course, so I am quite interested to see what he has for us in the 2.0 version of his training.

To be honest, besides knowing John from his reputation I don’t actually have anything concrete I can talk about regarding his work. I know he makes a ton of money in other niches outside of the make money online education market and I remember a long time ago linking to one of his videos about using AdSense, where he showed some incredible numbers.

This really is my first opportunity to taste his training, and so far I’m impressed.

Learn by Observation

You have to watch John’s first video just to see how a content-focused presentation can be used to both educate and stimulate an action at the same time.

John is known as a ground breaking marketer, in the sense that he raises the bar through innovation. I think the videos he is doing now are definitely good - perhaps not quite ground breaking but definitely raising the standards for how to market effectively with video, like StomperNet have done with their recent launches.

For this reason alone, as an Internet marketer, you have to go and watch John’s traffic secrets 2.0 video purely for the lesson in marketing it presents.

What About The Content? Will It Deliver Traffic?

The video itself presents 10 traffic tips that should definitely stimulate ideas in your head. You don’t get the whole kitchen sink of how to do it, but you get the idea, which is valuable as a starting point.

John takes us through each tip and explains the concept of Results Detection, a sort of way to do online meta-research to find where the traffic and the money is.

The variety of traffic sources presented is certainly diverse, and I think most people who watch this video will not be able to say they currently use every technique John talks about - I certainly do not.

Included as possible research targets for traffic are sites like eBay, Technorati, Digg, PRWeb, Commission Junction and Compete.com. Now you might know these as good sites, but do you use them currently as a way to find where the traffic is? Probably not quite in the same way as John does.

Anyway, that’s enough of an introduction, you should go check it for yourself, it’s free, and if you like what you see, follow John’s prompt at the end of the video and opt-in for a second video where John talks about how to “own the web”. I’m watching the second video now myself.

Here’s where to get started -

www.trafficsecrets.com/home

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The day after I arrived in Vegas I got an email from Tim Kerber, the guy in charge of Membership Site Bootcamp, a training program for people who want to profit by creating their own online membership site.

Tim was super nice to me. He gave me his cell phone number via email and asked if I wanted to meet up early before the official mastermind the next day. I had plans to go see Cirque Du Soleil that night, so I had to give him a raincheck.

The next day, Tim was one of the first guys to come up and say hello at Jeff Walker’s mastermind meet-up and to be honest, besides knowing his name from the very successful Membership Site Bootcamp launch from 2007 (1.7 Million in sales), I didn’t know much about him.

It turns out Tim is a regular reader of my blog. I chatted with him for a good half hour at the networking event and I was impressed by how down to earth and friendly he is.

My Favorite Business Model - Membership Sites

It’s no secret that I have made a big chunk of my living from Blog Mastermind, my first membership site. I made over $100,000 from this one site in the past year alone.

The money is obviously great, but what I’m most happy about is how the steady income proves that my members receive so much value that they choose to stay a member of my program for the long term. This is very satisfying intrinsically, as well as financially.

Membership sites are a solid business model because you foster an ongoing relationship with your clients. The recursive income is obviously a motivation, but as anyone who runs a membership site understands, the money is a result of delivering ongoing value, it’s not a one-hit-wonder style product where you make your money and then walk away.

I’m not a fan of releasing one product after another, going from launch to launch. Creating and marketing products is a lot of work, so I prefer to have flagship products that you invest in over time and improve to the point that you have a superior position in your marketplace. If you focus your energy on just your membership site, it can become the basis for an entire six, or even seven figure business.

Membership Site Training From Tim Kerber

This week Membership Site Bootcamp reopens again for only the second time.

Tim’s currently in prelaunch mode for his flagship training program and as usual, that means there are free videos and other educational materials flying around the Internet marketing community. This is a great opportunity to grab some training on what is definitely the best online business model I know of so you can learn how to start your own membership site.

You can check out Tim’s latest video here -

Membership Site Bootcamp Video

This first video shows the outcome of some of Tim’s recent student’s successes launching membership sites.

Some of the numbers Tim shows from his previous students are impressive, but don’t let that daunt you. I aimed for 50 members when I first launched my site because I figured even 50 members times $50 a month is a great starting income of $2,500 a month. I ended up with 300 after the launch week, which obviously was a great result and fully convinced me of the viability of the membership site model.

Put it another way - if you can attract just one member a week, that’s 52 members a year and even with a 10% dropout rate, you are still making good money. Chances are your site will grow quicker, so you won’t stay at one new member a week for long.

If you have an idea for a course or a subscription service or any kind of membership site, it’s worth checking out what Tim is doing. Take a look at the free 8 minute long Membership Site Bootcamp video and if you like what you see, opt-in to grab the rest of the free videos.

www.membershipsitebootcamp.com

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