The recipe for a $200K per year job
- Thread starter vladi
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Hey!! Awsome is an understatement for the information you have shared here. I have just stepped into organic traffic building, and am able to build for some log tail keywords. Thanks to a post at DP. But now, I guess I am in for the big thing... I am a good programmer I must say, but an unsuccessful affiliate / Internet marketer. I guess this is my doorway to open up to the smaller avenues... Though I am not from a very advanced country, I guess this idea should work in smaller countries like india too. What do you reckon? Also, do you think this could work cross country? Like dominating for countries like germany or something like that?
Being that this post is getting pretty popular I'm going to try and give some hints of what I do to work with offline companies and some of the products I use to make it happen.
I work with a select niche (for fun let's say it's plumbers) I thus have a portal site that isn't to bad looking. It has a blog with a bunch of indian written stuff that I have someone rewrite in english for me. Total cost of those 40 posts is under $100. I have this because google likes content and it makes it look like what it is. A site about plumibing. I have this one on a domain lets says it's "listofplumbersinyourarea.com".
The home page looks something like the old citysearch homepage used to look like. Lot of links to the cities I have “plumbers” in. This then links to a page that for some reason looks alot like the sample page shoemoney had for his dental client in the article he wrote on local affiliate marketing. For the life of me I don't know why they look so similiar. But it converts well and I'm split testing it against some other lps I just had made for me (I'm lazy and don't like to make my own.) total cost of two other really quality lps $200.
How I get clients. I don’t like to cold call. So I don’t. But someone does. Thanks to the crap economy I pay someone to call and say 3 sentences and then fax or email a one page intro of what we do. I think get someone better at calling on the phone to call back the next day and talk about what was faxed or emailed. Crazy thing it works.
Why it works? I tell them I will give them 5 leads for free. If you do this write it should cost you at most $100 in PPC. After that you say that you will keep providing more (tell them once you geet your marketing dialed in you will get htem 5x more leads a month also) for XXX dollars for EVERY CLIENT they get. Don’t sell them leads youcan make more selling them clients. Tell them you know that XX% of leads turns into clients and then hold them to that when you send your weekly report saying you provided 10 calls and 2 emails that week.
But how will I know who called or emailed them. If you don’t know how to set up an aweber form that forwards to someone you should probably stop reading. The phone is a little more tricky but only in finding a provider who does all of the handful of features you need. And I found that company. It’s ifbyphone.com. What you do is by an advanced package from them it’s like $50 a month or something and you can buy as many $3 a month phone numbers as you want. You then forward these numbers to all of your clients. But the best part is that they have what is called an “Audio Whisper” when you plumber client picks up. This is the Holy Grail because now your plumber gets told by the whisper “This lead provider by XYZ plumbing referral service”. It’s fabulous and fixes the biggest problem I had the first 3 months I did this. Thank you twitter for connecting me with this service. But I digress.
That is the jist of my business model. If you have any question feel free to ask and I promise I won’t be a smart a$% back. But if I do answer your question and then ask you one about what you are doing and I don’t get back a reply I will post on this forum how big of a tool you are. Just and FYI.
I work with a select niche (for fun let's say it's plumbers) I thus have a portal site that isn't to bad looking. It has a blog with a bunch of indian written stuff that I have someone rewrite in english for me. Total cost of those 40 posts is under $100. I have this because google likes content and it makes it look like what it is. A site about plumibing. I have this one on a domain lets says it's "listofplumbersinyourarea.com".
The home page looks something like the old citysearch homepage used to look like. Lot of links to the cities I have “plumbers” in. This then links to a page that for some reason looks alot like the sample page shoemoney had for his dental client in the article he wrote on local affiliate marketing. For the life of me I don't know why they look so similiar. But it converts well and I'm split testing it against some other lps I just had made for me (I'm lazy and don't like to make my own.) total cost of two other really quality lps $200.
How I get clients. I don’t like to cold call. So I don’t. But someone does. Thanks to the crap economy I pay someone to call and say 3 sentences and then fax or email a one page intro of what we do. I think get someone better at calling on the phone to call back the next day and talk about what was faxed or emailed. Crazy thing it works.
Why it works? I tell them I will give them 5 leads for free. If you do this write it should cost you at most $100 in PPC. After that you say that you will keep providing more (tell them once you geet your marketing dialed in you will get htem 5x more leads a month also) for XXX dollars for EVERY CLIENT they get. Don’t sell them leads youcan make more selling them clients. Tell them you know that XX% of leads turns into clients and then hold them to that when you send your weekly report saying you provided 10 calls and 2 emails that week.
But how will I know who called or emailed them. If you don’t know how to set up an aweber form that forwards to someone you should probably stop reading. The phone is a little more tricky but only in finding a provider who does all of the handful of features you need. And I found that company. It’s ifbyphone.com. What you do is by an advanced package from them it’s like $50 a month or something and you can buy as many $3 a month phone numbers as you want. You then forward these numbers to all of your clients. But the best part is that they have what is called an “Audio Whisper” when you plumber client picks up. This is the Holy Grail because now your plumber gets told by the whisper “This lead provider by XYZ plumbing referral service”. It’s fabulous and fixes the biggest problem I had the first 3 months I did this. Thank you twitter for connecting me with this service. But I digress.
That is the jist of my business model. If you have any question feel free to ask and I promise I won’t be a smart a$% back. But if I do answer your question and then ask you one about what you are doing and I don’t get back a reply I will post on this forum how big of a tool you are. Just and FYI.
So as I'm reading more of your posts here are some question I feel like answering:
Can I do this in a city of 2000. My answer: WHY? You really don't need to meet these people in person so you aren't limited to your middle of nowhere city. I try very hard not to meet any of my clients why would I.
So yes you can do this in your town of 2000 but if you do then try for a niche list dentist or car dealer. Don't do the razor blade repairman. There isn't alot of searches for "MiddleofNoWhere TinkerToy Repair".
OK I have real work to do now I'll come back to make fun of your questions soon enough.
Can I do this in a city of 2000. My answer: WHY? You really don't need to meet these people in person so you aren't limited to your middle of nowhere city. I try very hard not to meet any of my clients why would I.
So yes you can do this in your town of 2000 but if you do then try for a niche list dentist or car dealer. Don't do the razor blade repairman. There isn't alot of searches for "MiddleofNoWhere TinkerToy Repair".
OK I have real work to do now I'll come back to make fun of your questions soon enough.
Here are two questions I was sent with my answers:
1.It sounds like you are building the site around a target niche and not a target area (ie listofplumbersinyourarea) I see 2 concerns with this: starting off i will have an empty directory. Also, once established my listings will compete with each other which may really drive down results (does a plumber really want to waste time dealing with me if I'm generating only one lead a month?)
A: I don't even think they look at my site until I send them the mock up of their page. I'm offering free leads and I don't think they really care where they come from.
As far as competition between there isn't any. A plumber in seattle isn't competiting against a plumber in Portland. I also dont' limit myself to my geo area. I'm happy with any big city coast to coast.
2. What do you think is a better niche to go with: high volume/lower value per lead, or low volume/high value? eg. hair salon/flower shop/plumbers vs dentists/lawyers?
A: Volume is less important to me than how much I make for the lead. Try to find something with a combo that you feel is worth your time. either $50 a lead and 10 a month or $250 a lead and 2 a month.
1.It sounds like you are building the site around a target niche and not a target area (ie listofplumbersinyourarea) I see 2 concerns with this: starting off i will have an empty directory. Also, once established my listings will compete with each other which may really drive down results (does a plumber really want to waste time dealing with me if I'm generating only one lead a month?)
A: I don't even think they look at my site until I send them the mock up of their page. I'm offering free leads and I don't think they really care where they come from.
As far as competition between there isn't any. A plumber in seattle isn't competiting against a plumber in Portland. I also dont' limit myself to my geo area. I'm happy with any big city coast to coast.
2. What do you think is a better niche to go with: high volume/lower value per lead, or low volume/high value? eg. hair salon/flower shop/plumbers vs dentists/lawyers?
A: Volume is less important to me than how much I make for the lead. Try to find something with a combo that you feel is worth your time. either $50 a lead and 10 a month or $250 a lead and 2 a month.
Gee, thanks for blessing us with your amazing presence and insightful help.
Jackass.
It's cool, I use lots of lube.
Also, my butt hurt rants generally include lots of ALLCAPS and unintelligible insults.
I was just pointing out to infomarker that he was coming across like a schmarmy pedo at a kid's swimming pool. Good content other than that tho.
Do you target big cities specifically? And work with only one plumber (or whatever business) per big city? It sounded by the way that you had someone cold calling a list of businesses, that you took multiple businesses in a single area (I guess you just choose one if more than one were willing to work with you?)
Are you able to rank your pages relatively well for your keywords in these big cities? Because the thread starter's idea centered around cities with 40,000 or less search results for a key term which sounds like smaller areas for most niches.
Jesus. There's no secret play book. Just start fucking around with it and see what works for you. You learn more from movement than meditation.
^^^
Always straight to the point Vinny, love it.
AD1985, there's a ton of ways to attack this.
Go sell SEO & websites to local businesses.
Put up a niche site, rank it #1, sell it or rent it.
Put up a niche directory, rank it #1, rent ad space on it.
Sell existing website owners autoresponders (call it customer aquisition management or some shit) and a contact form on every page.
Put up whatever the fuck you can think of and rank it #1, after that, it's pretty fucking easy.
Always straight to the point Vinny, love it.
AD1985, there's a ton of ways to attack this.
Go sell SEO & websites to local businesses.
Put up a niche site, rank it #1, sell it or rent it.
Put up a niche directory, rank it #1, rent ad space on it.
Sell existing website owners autoresponders (call it customer aquisition management or some shit) and a contact form on every page.
Put up whatever the fuck you can think of and rank it #1, after that, it's pretty fucking easy.
I like infomarketer's angle. I'm going to try a one-business-per-city approach in big and medium sized cities and have it set up so that I can offer free leads to entice business, and then bill on value. I think I'll authoritatively tell businesses that from previous client relationships in this industry I know that 75% of my leads turn into conversions, and bill based off of that figure. This should be a fun experiment, I'll report how it goes!
I'm going to post regular updates on my project.
I have figured out a decent niche, nothing overly imaginative (think one of the larger groups of professionals) and have hired out the site design.
My description called for a directory site with the basic home page, about us, privacy, etc as well as a few actual mockup pages with sample dental office listings (for me to use as templates) I posted the project on 8 different sites yesterday and already have close to 100 bids, many of them are bidding as low as $100! Outsourcing is incredible. I'm contacting a few of them now.
I also sent out an email to ifbyphone.com sales to clarify what package my referral business needs. We will see what they have to offer.
Not much else yet, things will be pretty stagnant until the site is up.
Right now I'm drafting my fax/email sales page that speaks directly to the customer's needs without sounding overly salesy. i want the customer to read my ad as "here is what we offer, here is how it will help you make more money, and with no risk on your part because we get paid after you do"
Will post another update when I have more to say.
I have figured out a decent niche, nothing overly imaginative (think one of the larger groups of professionals) and have hired out the site design.
My description called for a directory site with the basic home page, about us, privacy, etc as well as a few actual mockup pages with sample dental office listings (for me to use as templates) I posted the project on 8 different sites yesterday and already have close to 100 bids, many of them are bidding as low as $100! Outsourcing is incredible. I'm contacting a few of them now.
I also sent out an email to ifbyphone.com sales to clarify what package my referral business needs. We will see what they have to offer.
Not much else yet, things will be pretty stagnant until the site is up.
Right now I'm drafting my fax/email sales page that speaks directly to the customer's needs without sounding overly salesy. i want the customer to read my ad as "here is what we offer, here is how it will help you make more money, and with no risk on your part because we get paid after you do"
Will post another update when I have more to say.
kimboslice: few questions
1. When you say, "directory page" are you referring to your website?
2. What would estimate the start up costs to be?
3. Are you suggesting starting a webpage or a directory page
1. When you say, "directory page" are you referring to your website?
2. What would estimate the start up costs to be?
3. Are you suggesting starting a webpage or a directory page
Anyone have CMS recommendations for this?
I've scanned a few competitors. Most seem to be custom coded.
I see a few half-decent php scripts but nothing that is knocking my socks off.
myphpdirectory is one.
I know wordpress has been tossed around by many here.
But just seems to me that's not going to be a perfect fit for a directory.
For mini-host sites that'd work fine.
thinking maybe highly customized joomla install would be a better route.
anyone willing to share their setups?
I've scanned a few competitors. Most seem to be custom coded.
I see a few half-decent php scripts but nothing that is knocking my socks off.
myphpdirectory is one.
I know wordpress has been tossed around by many here.
But just seems to me that's not going to be a perfect fit for a directory.
For mini-host sites that'd work fine.
thinking maybe highly customized joomla install would be a better route.
anyone willing to share their setups?
I'm trying to do this on drupal right now. I'm just taking some premade template and throwing my own shit in there. I want to make it so that it's easier to customize later on.
Wordpress + bb_wolfe's reviewpluginforwordpress.com + assorted plugins = good enough to charge $$$
Don't waste time nitpicking with anything new. I thought I needed to use something super fancy, so I fucked around with Joomla and Drupal for WAY longer than I should have.
So long, in fact, that I don't even do the directory thing. I pissed around with the idea while I got busy with other things, and still haven't had a chance to get back to it. I _do_ sell internet marketing services to local businesses. But as of yet, I don't have a directory.
One thing I do is lease websites. But yeah, still haven't done a directory.
Don't waste time nitpicking with anything new. I thought I needed to use something super fancy, so I fucked around with Joomla and Drupal for WAY longer than I should have.
So long, in fact, that I don't even do the directory thing. I pissed around with the idea while I got busy with other things, and still haven't had a chance to get back to it. I _do_ sell internet marketing services to local businesses. But as of yet, I don't have a directory.
One thing I do is lease websites. But yeah, still haven't done a directory.
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