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Cut straight to the chase - Download the free report Death of Internet Marketing by Mike Filsaime (aff).

Fresh from reports about the death of AdSense, and Internet business manifestos, and final chapters and life after AdSense and product launches and endless free reports and information on how to make money online I have yet another free Internet marketing report for you to read.

This one, of course, is different, because it’s from Mike Filsaime.

I have to be honest with you, I’m not one for hero worship but in the Internet marketing world Mike Filsaime is about as close to my hero as you can get. Mike is one of the few Internet marketers who’s newsletter I remain subscribed to and I think his Butterfly Marketing (aff) product is one of the coolest tools available in Internet marketing - it’s the most expensive Internet marketing product I have ever bought too!

I love Mike’s work and as soon as I heard about this free report I went and downloaded it eager to see what Mike was up to. I was curious whether it was a new product launch or not and what Mike’s take is on where Internet marketing is heading, especially given what Rich Schefren and Scott Boulch have been writing about in recent months in their free reports.

It turns out that no, this report is not specifically part of a product launch (I think - you never know!) although Mike is definitely building a list he intends to make money with in the future.

There are some neat features about this free report you should check out - and I don’t even mean the report itself! Here are some of the cool things about the Death of Internet Marketing:

• If you are an Internet marketer you have to go download the report just to see how Mike is confirming the opt-in. If you thought double opt-in was good, well Mike is using what I can only term “triple opt-in”, asking for email verification and extra verification via a captcha code you have to enter after double opting in. Yes this makes for quite a bit of work by the person wanting access to the report but it also means Mike’s new list definitely want the report - they went through three steps just to get it! That also means they will probably take extra time to read it and the list will be of a good quality when he goes to monetize it later this year or next year.
• Mike is of course using his Butterfly Marketing membership system (aff) to deliver the book and his viral marketing principles as he lays out in his manuscript (you can read my review of Mike’s butterfly marketing manuscript to learn more).
• He’s not pushing a one-time-offer or anything after you opt-in, you just get the e-book, however you also can recommend the book and Mike is paying out $1 for each person you refer to a two tier level. That means you get paid for both the people you refer and the people they refer under them (so essentially Mike pays out $2 per download of his book - he will probably end up paying about $50-60k to build this list).

  This is similar to what Scott Boulch did earlier this year with the Death of AdSense report that launched his Click Flipping business and just like that report, those who were in early earned the most referral commissions.

• Mike includes a survey (like Scott Boulch did) that attempts to gather some market intelligence about people interested in Internet marketing, which I think is a good move and like he says will help him craft his business plan for the coming year.

  As an aside - the survey function is a feature I’d like to see built into the members version of Butterfly Marketing, along with the triple opt-in function, and I expect it’s only a matter of time before Mike delivers. He keeps updating the software which is great - he didn’t just do the Butterfly Marketing product launch and walk away with his millions. He’s been consistently upgrading and enhancing the software month after month, albeit upgrades during the early months after launch were to fix some nasty bugs that the software had and I expect some people asked for refunds as a result. Those who stayed with him got to see the software mature into a very functional tool.

That’s enough Mike loving for now. I recommend you download the report as soon as possible and then tell your blog readers and email list subscribers about the report so you can earn your commissions. This really is super-easy money for those who act quick enough, and you get a very relevant e-book and can watch a master of Internet marketing ply his craft.

And yes of course if you download via my link I get a dollar and I get a dollar for the people you refer who download it, so of course I encourage you to do like I am doing to help spread the word for everyones benefit and take advantage of Mike’s offer while it is available for two weeks. Since this doesn’t cost you anything you certainly shouldn’t feel bad or cheated or greedy - everyone wins here. Don’t make the mistake of missing the opportunity because you don’t think it’s right to make money from this - I didn’t when I “paid” my dollar to Brian Clark who’s link I decided to click to download the report (and there were plenty of options).

Download the free report: Death of Internet Marketing.

What Is The Book All About?

This e-book touches upon pretty much everything we have been hearing lately, especially Rich Schefren’s teachings. Since Rich is also Mike’s coach it is not that surprising that they agree on a lot of things. Your going to hear about opportunity seeking and the long tail and product launches and pretty much everything else you will have read on my blog and in many other places if you study and/or work in Internet marketing.

Is Internet marketing dying? No. Are there too many product launches and is the market becoming jaded with them? Possibly. What’s going to happen next? - Mike’s report has some ideas that will certainly make you think. It’s a good read.

I like that Mike is a hugely successful Internet marketer himself so is in prime position to actually experience what is going on from the top. I think you can tell by now that Mike, along with Rich, are two of the only guys I still listen to in this industry and look to for advice.

One last time - Download the Death of Internet Marketing.

Yaro Starak
Internet Marketer

[ Add Your Comment | 11 Comments ]

Wow, this is interesting however I don’t know what is the best way to approach the situation so perhaps you can help me, in fact I really think you are the best person (people) to offer feedback since ultimately it’s you I care about and I believe this situation could damage our relationship if I went down this path.

Let me explain from the beginning…

Whether it is coincidence or not in the last 24 hours I received a few emails relating to being paid to do reviews on my blog.

The first was an unsolicited contact to enter into a discussion about reviewing a site in exchange for a three figure amount. I declined this offer because I felt I didn’t have time to do the necessary research to conduct a review or even determine whether I believed the review would be relevant to my readers. I also am worried that it might not appear genuine since I was being paid to do it - my credibility and the credibility of the review may be reduced.

Then I get an email from the TextLinkAds.com crew that a new service just launched called ReviewMe and that my site has been pre-approved AND if I act quick enough I could get paid to do a review of the ReviewMe site.

Since the email came from TextLinkAds.com I felt compelled to check it out and quickly signed up to ReviewMe.com. I created my account and had a look inside the system. I like what I saw, a simple interface and a simple idea - this might just work, and here is why…

Reviews Rank Well

Google loves reviews. Reviews generally rank very well in search engines, especially if you publish the review on a blog with reasonable authority rank (solid search rank). Nearly every review I publish on my blog eventually makes it on to the first page of Google results when searching for that particular product name keyword. Try a Google search for “Butterfly Marketing” or “Butterfly Marketing Review” for example and you will see the reviews I did on this blog on the first page of results.

Reviews Are Instrumental In The Buying Decision Making Process

Not only do search engines love reviews, people love them too. When someone is deciding whether to buy something or looking for options to solve a problem, they will often narrow down their selection to a few products or service providers then go hunting for reviews.

People generally trust reviews done by other people as opposed to “media reviews” which smell biased. What is one the best things about blogs? - They are personal and very much an expression of the blogger as opposed to a corporate robot-voice sales pitch. That’s one the main reasons why blogs work. Reviews written by bloggers with a reputation for unbiased opinion and expertise in their area are going to be perceived as a trusted source.

Reviews from bloggers are effective because of the credibility of the blogger. Combine that with solid search rankings for reviews and a buying process that often leads people to search for reviews online and you can see why a service like ReviewMe has a lot of potential.

I Could Get $125 Per Review

ReviewMe works much like TextLinkAds.com in calculating payments. Based on an authority and traffic assessment of your blog, including things like AlexaRank, Technorati Rank and estimated RSS subscription numbers, determines how much you will be paid per review.

In my case this blog is a 4 out of 5 star ranking earning me $125 per review and charging the advertiser $250 per review (at the time of writing this when the system launched).

Will advertisers pay $250 to have their product or service or website reviewed on my blog? Possibly. I can definitely say a review drives a lot more traffic and ranking juice than a text link in the sidebar does, but you pay a bit more than what you pay for a single text link. The thing about a review is it appears like natural content, heck it is natural content, but not the way I think Google wants to see natural content generated - in exchange for money - but I could be wrong. If it’s valuable content then perhaps Google doesn’t care what the motivation is for producing it.

The search engines are going to look at all the keywords around the links in the review and the anchor text in the links that point to the reviewed website, and no doubt pass on some authority ranking points. This is appealing for advertisers from an SEO point of view.

If a new online company had a few thousand dollars available for marketing online, spending the money for a slow rollout of say, 20 reviews of their product on 20 authority blogs in their niche, would be a pretty good strategy in terms of SEO. The spinoff might include more backlinks as well, as the reviews on blogs generate discussion and awareness on other blogs and forums online.

What About Credibility?

Herein lies the problem - credibility. If a blogger is paid to do a review, and as the ReviewMe terms of service clearly states that bloggers must disclose when the review is a “sponsored” review, will the readers of the review no longer consider that review of value? From a search engine point of view it’s still going to rank well, but remember it is humans who come through from search engines, so when they see the “sponsored review” notice will they click away, lumping the blogged review along with all the other media-sponsored reviews that may be bias and not worth trusting? I think some will, but not all, depending on how genuine the review reads.

Does the blogger lose credibility for accepting money in exchange for doing reviews? What about if they only do it now and then, perhaps four reviews a month? A blogger like me could quickly be earning four-figures from my blog just by doing 10 reviews a month assuming there were that many advertisers, but if I did that would I be reducing the quality of my blog, losing readers and eventually dropping the amount I earn per review.

Affiliate Product Reviews

Currently I do reviews on my blogs and usually, not always, the product I review has an affiliate program, so in effect I do get paid for my review - sometimes a little (err, nothing), sometimes a lot (up to a $1000 at best in my experience, and that comes from over many months). Although in this case instead of being asked to review something I review things I personally have used and know will appeal to my readers. The potential for affiliate income is good motivation to get something of value out to my readers. It’s win-win since I can help my readers make a decision whether a product is appropriate for their situation and if they decide to buy I get “paid” for my work producing the review. Will a review coming from a ReviewMe.com advertiser be quite so natural a process? I don’t think so.

ReviewMe Review

I don’t see myself accepting sponsored reviews very often, if at all. Personally I really need to feel I know a product and the industry it caters to well enough to talk about it. I will be surprised if any of the review requests I receive “tick enough boxes” for me to go ahead and do a review (e.g. appropriate for my readers, relevant enough to research it, matches my own personal needs to use it, I won’t damage my credibility by writing about it in a sponsored format, etc.). Then again there may come along something worth writing about, like in this case, ReviewMe.com itself, where I can craft an interesting article on a topic I care enough about to spend some time writing that happens to include a review that I am paid to do as well.

Which leads me to…a sponsored review of ReviewMe.com.

Despite all the potential issues mentioned above I do think conceptually, ReviewMe.com is a fantastic idea. It’s a many-to-many business model so expandable as long as there are bloggers and advertisers wanting to use the service. The website itself is clean, has a very very easy to navigate system which took me about five minutes to come to grips with and potentially can make a lot of bloggers some good money and help a lot of advertisers gain exposure.

There is a ton of money flooding into online advertising and I think ReviewMe is positioned perfectly to start enjoying some of this cash. The system is so easy to use that any individual can start requesting reviews immediately and carefully select which blogs they will like to appropriate. This in turn will encourage bloggers to accept reviews as they see the potential for earning some good money on a regular basis.

I like the general concept of reviews since I think they can be genuinely helpful - I look for them nearly every time I buy something online. I am worried how much good a 200 word review can do (that’s the minimum length required of bloggers by ReviewMe) and I suspect some bloggers will attempt to abuse the system and write tiny reviews and no doubt have trouble getting their reviews approved. The established bloggers with authority who can potentially earn the most from ReviewMe have enough street smarts to not throw away their previous work by pumping out 200 word reviews in exchange for some quick cash. While the short term gains may be good, in the long term it will hurt their blog and credibility.

I believe the most successful application of the ReviewMe service will be when a product so closely matches the audience of a particular blog that the blogger can easily craft a review that fits nicely into their blog flow and provides value, despite being paid to do it. Therein lies the key for bloggers to have success with ReviewMe - provide enough value without being perceived as selling out for the money.

Lately more and more services are launching to help bloggers monetize their blogs and I think ReviewMe has a good chance of being one of the successful operations. There are enough bloggers out there ready and willing to use this service given the potential payoffs and I expect there are also enough advertisers. ReviewMe may quickly become a staple income source for professional bloggers and an effective advertising tool for anyone looking to promote and generate buzz online.

What do you think?

Yaro Starak
Reviewer

[ Add Your Comment | 26 Comments ]

Since Text-Link-Ads.com (aff) makes up a significant proportion of my regular income I have to say I am happy to see them acquired by MediaWiz - I think - as long as things keep moving forward, which I expect they will.

We are excited to announce that Text Link Ads Inc will be joining forces with MediaWhiz. This will bring some exciting changes to our platform. Here is how this will benefit you in the coming months…

Read More

Congratulations to Patrick Gavin and co and if you are reading this Patrick, I hope my front page link isn’t taken down during the merger
It will be interesting to see what new CPA-style advertisements we can integrate into our blogs as a result of this merger, since MediaWiz is quite the central hub for online advertising broking.

[ Add Your Comment | 1 Comment ]

I’m not entirely sure why, but for some reason it excites me when I read other bloggers talk about how much they earn. It must be something to do with the “I can do it too” factor that gets me motivated.

To keep the trend running I’ve decided to report back some of my results working online as well in the hope that I can motivate you. October also happened to be the best month ever for me so I feel like bragging a little :).

I encourage you to report back how you are doing working and/or blogging online, no matter how much (or how little) you earn. If you do please trackback, comment or link to this blog post so I can see.

Income Summary

I love seeing the dollar figures first so I’ll give a quick round-up of my turnover, but bear in mind these are revenue figures, my profits are certainly not this high (I wish!) and I’ll only provide generic details about the income sources since I don’t want to give everything away!

Note that not all the money below has been paid to me yet - some of it is affiliate income and the cheques have not come through yet. I also did some rounding for simplicity sake.

October 2006

Amounts in $USD unless noted otherwise.

1. BetterEdit: $16,000+ (AUD)
This was a new monthly record, fuelled by my campaigning around the world.

2. Blog Advertising (internal): $400
This includes internal advertising not using a third party ad broker.

3. Blog Advertising (external): $450
Includes third party ad brokers such as Text Link Ads (aff) and RSS ads.

4. Affiliate Income: $4500
This was unusually high because of some big product launches but still reflects the potential for affiliate income from blogging - definitely better than AdSense in my case!

Total = $17,350 $USD*

*I converted the $AUD into $USD.

BetterEdit.com

I’ll go through BetterEdit first. I don’t think I announced it here on this blog, but I brought on an administration person, Angela, who is in Brisbane. The timing was great in that I was heading overseas to Toronto and needed someone to take over the day-to-day running of BetterEdit and Angela happened to be looking for some stay-at-home-mum style work at the same time. I knew Angela from university.

It was a bit of a whirlwind around August since Angela had only just had her first child, Ella, and a few weeks later I handed the admin role over to her as I got on a plane to Canada. Fast forward now to November and everything has settled well enough.

Note that while BetterEdit’s revenue was great in October there was the added cost of paying for the new admin person and since I am travelling around the world (well Hawaii and Canada anyway) promoting BetterEdit, I had extra expenses, so the margin dropped quite a lot.

BetterEdit generally runs at around a 30% profit margin, which I think is around a loose average for businesses depending on the model. That being said I do not pay myself a salary at this time so really you could say the business has no profit margin at all and pays me an average salary instead. Since my involvement in the business at the moment is very little - I watch over things and make sure payments go into bank accounts and paypal accounts - about 1 hour a day on average, it’s a fantastic work-to-income ratio, but it did take five years to get here.

Blog Advertising Income

Advertising income is probably the most steady aspect of my blogging income. I don’t use AdSense on my blogs and rely on my internal system to sell advertising directly and via third party systems like Text Link Ads and RSS Ads provided by Feedburner at this time. I test other advertising systems infrequently and so far these two work the best in tandem with my in-house campaigns, however no doubt I could do better if I spent more time in this area. I don’t see it becoming dramatically better though, maybe up to $2000 a month on improved traffic, so I hope to pass this task (advertising management) on to an employee/outsourcer soon since my time is spent better elsewhere.

Affiliate Income

Have I mentioned before how much I love affiliate income?

Warning…this gets a bit long and rambling-ish…

While I am far from earning a living from affiliate income and unfortunately mine is still largely dependent on regular blogging, it is growing and building up on previous efforts. It’s especially exciting to see in the recursive income areas like membership subscriptions, where the referral income keeps coming month after month.

After being involved in one of the largest Internet product launches ever I can see how amazingly well the big affiliates do. I won’t name names (my regular readers will probably guess), but let’s just say I was part of a product launch that broke a lot of records and one record in particular really blew me away - for the first time (I think) an affiliate made seven figures from one product promotion. That’s a million dollars in affiliate commissions for one person, not to mention the multiple six figure earning affiliates that were involved too. The stars had to align for this to happen (great marketers, great product the market was hungry for, known experts behind the product and great promotional materials to work with), but it really shows what is possible from affiliate marketing.

I’m barely averaging a four figure affiliate income each month. The trend is definitely up and I would hope if I kept at it for a few more years, five-figure results may become the norm, with four figures coming in recursively, but that’s a bit far off at this point especially if I keep working the way I do at the moment.

I don’t consider affiliate marketing to be a good business model for me long term, especially if I operate in the “Internet marketing” industry, since it is saturated and as I have talked about previously, suffering from a terrible credibility issue. It would be difficult to ever find solid points of leverage as an affiliate marketer for Internet marketing products without some established credibility, contacts and history in the industry. The boat has sailed in this market and I believe guys like Allan Gardyne, who started before we hit the year 2000, are the last of the big earners in the affiliate Internet marketing industry.

I have no doubt many will start up and eventually start earning good four and five figure months promoting Internet marketing products using Internet marketing (how to make money online teaching others how to make money online - why does that seem incestuous?), but there won’t be any new millionaires made unless they are already making that, or close to it, now. Don’t get me wrong - I think the potential is huge for affiliate earning in industries OUTSIDE of Internet marketing, just don’t go thinking you will get really wealthy promoting only Internet marketing products.

Personally I don’t want to be forever making two to three thousand a month in affiliate commissions and be forced to constantly come up with new content to maintain it. Right now, at this point in my life, it’s not a bad side income, it keeps my cashflow going and it certainly is worth pursuing - but it is a difficult industry to operate in given the current conditions and I wouldn’t recommend it as the focal point of your business plan for the future. At this time it happens to be a great way to monetize my blogs while I still enjoy writing about Internet marketing - I can’t see that being the case for for the rest of my life and as I said, is not a business model - it’s just a revenue stream (and yes, my favorite revenue stream at the moment because it’s 100% profit!).

The Future

If you were to stop and ask me what I am doing right now I’d say I am working towards building a business that doesn’t require me to always produce content or step in and manage things.

If you were to look at my present reality, besides the success I have had automating BetterEdit and generating passive income from blogging, I am basically a self employed creative person doing an awful lot of technical tasks, with a huge list of to-dos that I do not want to do, nor should I, if I am to a build a business.

For the time being I’m not doing too bad, especially when month’s like October come by.

How are you doing?

Yaro Starak
Making Money All Over The Place.

[ Add Your Comment | 12 Comments ]

Here’s a strategy for launching a buzzing forum from day one - create an uber-popular blog first, then launch a forum and bring your existing blog audience over to it.

Steve Pavlina has done just that launching his brand new Personal Development for Smart People Forums. He’s already reported explosive traffic growth at the forums and as I type this there are over 270 people on the forum with registrations numbers over 1000 and I expect the growth won’t be stopping any time soon.

Steve’s blog happens to be one of the most popular blogs in the blogosphere (we are talking millions of page views a month) so it’s not necessarily an easy thing to replicate, but certainly a joy to watch what one individual can create online.

If you want to learn more about Steve I interviewed him back in April -

• Steve Pavlina Interview - Part 1
• Steve Pavlina Interview - Part 2

[ Add Your Comment | 6 Comments ]