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I’ve been talking about it for long enough. Now is your chance to watch my latest video. Here’s the link -

This video covers a form of Internet marketing that combines the traffic and raw exposure power of a blog, with the direct marketing power of email lists.

I call it Conversion Blogging, and it’s the basis for my entire six-figure online business.

I honestly believe this system represents a much easier methodology for making money with blogs. I’m not saying you shouldn’t make money from traditional blog monetization methods like advertising (I still make a big chunk of change from sponsorship), but a blog can be so much more if you combine it with what has worked in the Internet marketing and direct marketing worlds for years (almost centuries when you look at offline mail order).

Of course for this system to work you can’t ignore blogging fundamentals - you still need to know what goes into building a great blog.

To help with this, after you watch the Conversion Blogging video, you can enter your name and email to watch my second video, a brand new visual presentation of the Blog Profits Blueprint and grab an updated copy of the text version of the Blueprint too.

I’ll let the videos do the explaining, so please go watch now, and then tell me what you think in comment replies here.

http://www.blogmastermind.com/video/

Yaro Starak
Conversion Blogger

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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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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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Here’s the video footage taken from behind closed doors in the Skyloft at the MGM Grand in Vega, where Jeff Walker hosted the Product Launch Formula top partners networking event. Look for 30 second interviews with Brian Clark, Tom Beal and Michael Cheney, along with scenes from inside the Skyloft.

Back in February I received the fantastic news that I had just scrapped in as a top 25 affiliate for the release of Product Launch Formula (PLF) 2.0 by Jeff Walker (again, a really big thanks to everyone currently studying PLF who purchased through me and I hope you are enjoying the iRiver bonus I sent too!).

Jeff and his brother Jon decided to run a party/networking/mastermind event only for the top affiliates and this was the first time I qualified for such an invitation-only event. I was very excited at the prospect of meeting many of the guys I follow and look to as mentors in the Internet marketing world.

Prior to this event I had only been to one Internet marketing conference, Rich Schefren’s Strategic Profits seminar held February 2007 in Florida. There I met Rich and Mike Filsaime and many people like me, running Internet businesses. I had spoken to Jeff and Jon Walker on teleconference calls and through Skype, but this was my first face-to-face meeting.

Besides Rich, Mike, Jeff and John, I was excited to see that Brian Clark from Copyblogger.com would be coming too (the only other “pure” blogger) as well as Tom Ham, Tom Beal, Colette Marshall, Willie Crawford, Jeff Dedrick, Michael Cheney, John Carlton, Shawn Casey, Ray Edwards, Howie Schwartz and more experts from the Internet marketing world. My only disappointment was that Frank Kern was not making the trip down to Vegas as I’d really like to meet my fellow long haired Internet marketer.

The event started at 1pm and included an afternoon in a Skyloft, which is an uber-expensive ($1,000 a night) apartment style hotel room in the MGM Grand hotel on the Vegas Strip and concluded with dinner at Craftsteak, a fancy steak restaurant located inside the hotel.

I left my hotel room and went down to the VIP area where they have special private elevators to access the Skylofts and immediately bumped into Rich Schefren who was chatting to Colette Marshall, whom I had never met. Rich introduced me and we chatted briefly until Michael Cheney showed up. By then it was nearly 1pm so we headed upstairs to the Skyloft.

Jeff and Jon Walker greeted us at the door and gave us a tour around the Skyloft before we joined the main crowd that had already arrived. I started shaking hands with people I knew, some I didn’t know and some I didn’t realize I did know (don’t you hate it when someone’s Twitter profile photo doesn’t quite match their real life face - Hi Brian!).

Read the rest of this entry >>

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I’ve put together a new video of the footage from around the Vegas strip. In this video I take you for a walk down the main casino and hotel strip, showing all kinds of crazy sites and sounds.

The strip is obviously a very commercial area, probably one of the most commercial places in the entire USA.

Spending time in Vegas is like entering a different world, with airplanes flying low to land in the airport which was in the backyard of my hotel the MGM Grand (almost!). The lights and sounds and visual stimulation makes the place feel very surreal, like you have entered into a movie that features an entirely new theme every 100 meters or so.

There a few interesting observations to make when it came to marketing techniques that I took away and can relate to you now. Obviously a place as commercial as this has to be able to market themselves. Here’s some thoughts -

1. Vegas offers comparatively cheap hotel rates. Even the most fancy hotels can be booked for under a $100 a night if you search the web and you can go much lower than that if you stay at the hotels just off the strip. These are some of the most impressive hotels in the world (the MGM Grand is the second largest hotel in the world) and if you don’t drink or gamble it’s quite possible to have a “cheap” holiday in Vegas, especially if you just want to lounge around the pool and walk up and down the strip.

   As soon as you start spending money on shows or gambling or drinking, that’s when the cost tends to rise up. This is of course a deliberate technique - make the accommodation cheap to get people there and then trust that the will spend up big. There’s no many products that offer as good a profit margin as gambling, so the hotels are quite happy to let people stay cheap.

2. As I pointed out in the video, there’s evidence of social proof and other forms of proof all over Vegas. One casino had a “wall of winners” showing photos of all the normal everyday people who had struck it rich showing off their big checks. Some had even become new millionaires.

   This is a classic technique that creates excitement and most importantly - hope. The whole idea of gambling is to purchase just a little potential for winning big with every bet. It’s this hope that creates the excitement that keeps people gambling away more money, despite fully understanding how bad the odds are in most situations.

3. The whole marketing image Vegas has developed is one of decadence and uninhibited pleasures. The psychology means people who come to Vegas leave their usual self-imposed restrictions at home. It’s okay to eat bad, drink lots, gamble and sleep with strangers in Vegas because that’s what people do. This frame helps the businesses benefit financially since money is spent a lot more frivolously than usual.

In my next post I’ll have the video up from the Jeff Walker Mastermind, including some short interviews with the experts attending. The networking was by far the highlight for me and I think you will enjoy my behind the scenes take of such a high-level meeting of marketing minds.

As always, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed and follow my Twitter profile if you want the latest from Vegas.

Yaro Starak
Not Gambling

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