Work at home on the Internet: internet marketing and affiliate program help.
Back issues here Issue 264 | Mar 3rd 2003

Letter from Phil

Here's what's inside:

Wet and Sticky and The Missing Link

The Missing Link - what do I think of it?

Life of an internet marketer

Viral PDF

What's going to bring you most success

Hope you find something useful and interesting here....

1. Wet and Sticky.

I'd like to thank Rebecca Hagel, author of an excellent ebook called The Missing Link, for saving me from getting very wet and sticky.

And possibly from getting very hurt.

It happens in Starbucks where I'm on my third double latte and reading a printout of Rebecca's book.

Well not just reading. I'm furiously scribbling in the margins, noting ideas I should be implementing on my sites, and hi-liting parts I want to read again.

Suddenly two teenagers sharing a brain cell walk in and accuse me of staring at them through the windows.

They're only about 17 years old, but look like they've grown up in jail. Incongruously they're both carrying large plastic cups of red soda.

While one pours his soda over the next table, the other gives me the evil eye.

"We don't f...ing like being stared at," he growls.

The three coffees have me on edge. "Neither do I. So go away."

I don't think they're used to being answered back. I start to rise from my seat and one of them runs away.

The one left behind looks around and finds he's alone, and suddenly he doesn't look so scary. I can't help myself, I start grinning.

He backs away so I sit down and pick up Rebecca's book thinking it's all over.

Then unexpectedly he charges at me and throws his soda right at my head. I swing The Missing Link up fast and it catches the soda and cup then whacks into my attackers face when he falls over the low table.

Screaming abuse he jumps up and runs out of the store.

The book's ruined, so I have to dump it in a bin, and I sit there musing about the irony of a book called The Missing Link saving me from an attack by two teens who look like throwbacks in the gene pool.

So that's how the lovely Rebecca came to save me from a sticky end...

If you'd like saving you can read it here

2.Oh...you'd like to know what I think of it?

Well it's very good, especially for beginners or people who aren't doing too great right now.

You might not remember, but a couple of years ago I ran a very successful banner ad series I called The Missing Link. They got a great click through rate and brought me in heaps of new subscribers.

Here are a couple of the banners I used to run.

So when I first heard people talking about The Missing Link a month or so ago, I didn't take much notice.

Then I heard Willie Crawford and a couple of other well known names praising it, so I thought I'd better take a look.

When I went to the site and saw that Steve MacLellan (whose opinion I value greatly) had written a glowing testimonial I knew I had to read it.

It's easy to see why it's become an almost instant hit. I picked up one idea almost straightaway which I'm going to implement on all my web sites.

And the information on how most people use freebies the wrong way is superb.

What's more, The Missing Link is completely hype free, and suitable for beginners as well as more advanced readers.

Not only that...it's an enjoyable read.

By the way, if you order right now you get 2 ebooks for the price of one. The second book "The Web Marketer's Dirty Little Secrets" is
also well worth reading.

http://www.ozemedia.com/missinglink.htm

Only one negative comment. It's only available as an .exe file so it's not suitable for Mac users, and it makes printing harder because you have to do it a chapter at a time.

And I've got to print my copy all over again :(

3. Listen, I'm behind on answering mail again.

I've been away for 5 days working on features for my travel web site.

So sorry if I haven't got back to you.

My next trip isn't until late April when I'm flying to Japan and then the UK for 5 or 6 weeks...living the life of an Internet marketer.

Can't beat it, can you :)

4. Viral PDF...

it's been a long time coming, but at last there's a low cost tool for making re-brandable pdf ebooks and reports.

5.What's going to bring you most success?

Selling something you love.

Someone wrote to me last week complaining about their lack of success. They said they couldn't find anything new to build mini sites or develop products about.

"but the fact remains that its all been done before and by people who have credibility," they wrote.

Wrong on two counts.

First... you DON'T have to come up with something new. You must have heard the term "copy success". You don't need to be
innovative, just try putting a new twist on something that's already selling well.

And wrong...it's not all been done before. People have always said that, but new things appear all the time.

It might seem like everything’s been done before in the internet marketing niche, but like I keep saying, the big thing is to get away
from that niche.

(and everything's NOT been done before in the Internet marketing niche - eg The Missing Link is a new approach)

But here's what you should be doing.

Have a good hard think about what you’re good at, what you know. It could be anything. You might make great pumpkin soup. You might know a lot about collecting eggcups, or the best way to get fluff off clothes.You might know a lot about baseballs, or pens, or beer, or sports shoes, or tropical fish.

I don’t know what your area of expertise is. But you do. All you’ve got to do is have a good long think about yourself, your interests, your past, the things you love…and come up with something you
REALLY want to build sites around.

Of course, if you're a hard worker, you can also forget following what you love and follow the money instead. In other words, look at what's selling online and build sites to promote it.

See issue 248 for more on this

So if you want to develop a long term business around something you're interested in, don't be in too big a hurry to make money.

Build a site for the love of doing it…other people who love the same thing will start coming to your site, and eventually, especially if you get their email addresses, you’ll be able to profit from the site by
offering something for sale on it that exactly fits the topic of the site.

So go for it. Do something you love.

The money will follow eventually.

And if you're impatient and want to follow the money, use Nichefinder to research hot topics.

I wrote about Nichefinder in last weeks issue

Ok, that's it for today...