Nov
27
That’s right… Effective June 4th Google will no longer be protecting trademark terms. That means you can now bid on your favorite music artists, celebrities, and brands. This is HUGE if you run polls or even competing company offers. Here are my three favorite picks from the list of over …
Nov
10
Butterfly Marketing Review
Filed Under Butterfly Marketing, Internet Marketing, Mike Filsaime | Leave a Comment
Name: Butterfly Marketing Software
Creator: Mike Filsaime
URL: www.butterflymarketing.com
Purpose: A complete membership, affiliate and viral marketing software solution
I’ve already completed a review of the Butterfly Marketing Manuscript, which is the book from Mike Filsaime that details the strategies behind Butterfly Marketing. I reckon it’s a fantastic book and frankly, Mike’s thoughts are genius, I really reckon he came up with online marketing 2.0, taking some of the best strategies that have worked offline and making them work even better online.
In this review I do not intend to cover the strategies behind Butterfly Marketing. This is a review of the Butterfly Marketing software, the program you can use to implement Butterfly Marketing strategies and the system I use to manage Blog Mastermind.
Since I have now properly implemented Butterfly Marketing on a live site, I can offer you my feedback on the complete package.
What Is Butterfly Marketing?
Mike Filsaime made a huge splash in 2006 when he released his Butterfly Marketing product, which grossed over a million dollars in sales in a week.
When the product was initially released it was a home-study package with a manual, interview CDs and several additional guidebooks and resources on things like conducting a product launch, outsourcing and running a “Firesale” – all information Mike produced by interviewing experts. The real key value in the Butterfly Marketing package though, was the software, the first time anything like it had been released online and one of the best ways to implement what Mike taught in the Butterfly Marketing Manuscript.
The software is essentially a membership site combined with an affiliate program (so all members are affiliates too), with a few nice extra features such as one time offer and thank you page tools. The software can be used as a distribution vehicle for a free or paid membership site, or just to deliver an information product like an e-book or MP3 audio series. People sign up as members, are given the resource they requested or bought within a secure membership area, and are provided with a set of promo tools to use to sell the product as an affiliate. The one time offer can be inserted in the sign-up process as a means to sell a product on the “back-end” of the opt-in process.
All these functions are part of the overall Butterfly Marketing strategy, which I have talked about in length before in the manuscript review. If this is the first time you have heard about one time offers, or thank-you pages, or anything to do with Butterfly Marketing, I suggest you read the Butterfly Marketing Manuscript review first, so you can see why having a software package to implement all these concepts is so powerful. It will help you to know the overall “Butterfly Marketing” concept as a whole.
How Much Is Butterfly Marketing?
When the package first came out it was $997 until it sold out. Later in the year the price was raised to $1497 and the program was made available again. Then Mike chose to release just the manuscript, the book without the software, for $97, but he had a one time offer in the back-end process after buying the book, where you could get a digital version of the full package (rather than having it shipped to you in hard-copy) and a copy of the software for $497, the cheapest price yet to get the software.
I believe you can still buy the software by taking up the one time offer during the buy process for the manuscript, which you can order from this page (the one time offer comes as you go through the buy process for the book) -
http://www.thebutterflymarketingmanuscript.com/
How Excellent Is The Software?
Once again I have to state my standard disclaimer about technology – I no longer install or manage software myself, I have programmers who are much better at it than me set things up and I provide the content and clarify how I want things to work. As a result I can’t really talk with authority about the really technical aspects of the software, only the areas I use and interact with can I comment on.
Nick, who installed Butterfly Marketing for me, said it’s not the cleanest program and the code used to make it work is far from perfect. From my point of view it does what I want it to do. It’s simple and is an simple way to have a password protected membership system with multiple membership levels set-up.
It integrates fine with my autoresponder of choice – AWeber (read my AWeber review here) and I use Paypal (my Paypal review is here) with it to take payments. The software also integrates with other email autoresponders and payment systems, so provided you use some of the more well loved services you shouldn’t have any problems integrating.
The back-end admin panel for Butterfly Marketing is not well designed in terms of aesthetics and some functions leave a lot to be desired. For example, searching for names of the people who made a buy an affiliate has referred is not simple, and you would reckon that is a straight forward function you need to have. The admin system used to handle affiliate management isn’t fantastic and I’m finding myself doing a lot of manual tasks to get things done.
I’m pretty sure I’ll end up paying out affiliate commissions for a few people I have refunded since there is no way to automatically remove affiliate commissions after I issue a refund for a customer with Paypal. Small things like this are just not handled well by Butterfly Marketing and while you can work out manual solutions to most problems, it would be nice to have the software do it all for you.
All that being said, as a whole it certainly functions well enough and as I found out when I did my initial research into membership software programs, there isn’t anything out there that has a membership system so well integrated into an affiliate program, which is the main reason I chose Butterfly Marketing.
Affiliate Management
Having an affiliate program embedded within your membership system means you can utilize your best asset – your existing customers – as a marketing tool and make a mutually beneficial relationship (customers can get paid for helping spread the word). Provided you blow your customers away with the value you offer, your current clients are the best promotional tool you ever have, evangelists who can genuinely and authentically recommend what you offer because they have used it. Butterfly Marketing makes this process seamless.
That is the single largest reason why I chose this software over all other membership systems available. Most membership software I investigated as alternatives to Butterfly Marketing either had no affiliate program built in (meaning I would have to have a third party solution making yet another sign-up process for my members, something I wanted to avoid) or the affiliate program was very weak, only providing members with a basic affiliate text link.
The affiliate system is quite simple and you can use it to offer all kinds of media for your affiliates. For example I provide banners, text links, forum and email signatures, blog articles and full emails, all embedded automatically with the affiliate ID of my members, providing simple cut-n-paste solutions for affiliates to promote with. You can provide as many different media for your affiliates as you can come up with. It’s such a simple way to empower your affiliates and one of the strongest features of Butterfly Marketing.
I have my system set up so affiliate resources are provided on a single page called “Promo Tools”, there is another page called “Earn Money”, which clarifies how the affiliate program works and there is also an “Affiliate Earnings” page that details how many sales the affiliate has made. All these sections blend seamlessly with the other features of the membership area, including the member resources, the support area and any other areas you want to offer your members.
It might seem obvious to have your members automatically become affiliates, but before Mike Filsaime produced this software it was not something that could easily be implemented at a low cost.
Problems
The largest problem with the software as I see it is how hard it is to get to work how you want it to work without seriously modifying things. If you are not a excellent programmer, familiar at least with HTML and preferably PHP and MySQL too, or you don’t have tech people to help you, it will be quite hard to get the software to do what you want it to do straight “out of the box”.
Thankfully I have access to three guys who all know their HTML, CSS, PHP and server management and nearly every modification I wanted to see made was possible with a small tweaking. This process led to some serious frustrations though, so the disclaimer needs to be made – don’t use this software if you don’t have the technical resources to make it work.
Another problem is integration with other software. For example I’d like to have a single sign-on process for my members to have access to a members forum, which right now is not possible unless you hack both the forum software and Butterfly Marketing to get them to talk to each other. The same goes for any other software you might like to integrate.
It would be fantastic to see some plug-ins added that offer the ability to combine common software programs within Butterfly Marketing, so it would be possible to enhance membership features without making extra layers of registration process.
Conclusion
Right now I know of no better software program to sell information products online or run a membership site with an integrated affiliate program that does a better job than Butterfly Marketing. It is far from perfect and I have plenty of features I’d like to see improved, but for the time being there simply are not many options out there unless you are prepared to have something coded from scratch. This is not an option for most small business Internet marketers, which is why Butterfly Marketing is so appealing.
I personally see this is a huge market opportunity and if a real software company chose to take on the membership+affiliate management area and come up with a well supported and intelligently designed program (from a marketer’s perspective), I can see Butterfly Marketing replaced as the best solution – there certainly is room for improvement.
Butterfly Marketing is ultimately a program made by an Internet marketer using a team of outsourced programmers. It is not produced by a dedicated software company and as such lacks some of the polish you would expect if it was. But it’s because of its background coming from a marketer that it works so well as a marketing tool and doesn’t have layers of confusion or excessive features that would hurt performance. It does what you need it to do if you are prepared to hack around in the code. It’s far from elegant, but it is powerful.
I plot to continue to use the software until something better comes along and all my future product releases will be distributed via Butterfly Marketing simply because it makes marketing sense to use it. There is never a reason not to have an affiliate program or a one time offer or any other of the sound marketing tactics that Butterfly Marketing gives you the tools to implement, because they all help you make more money. If you have the tools available you should use them.
Once you have the software working it’s not hard to replicate it for each new product you release, so as in my case – Butterfly Marketing is the central tool powering an entire online business – and I’m not the only Internet marketer making use of this product and earning excellent money doing so. There are hundreds of testimonials from people doing six or even seven figures a year all powered by Butterfly Marketing, so I have to give kudos where it’s due. It’s not perfect, but what you get is effective, functional and right now it’s the best option out there.
If you want more information about Butterfly Marketing click here -
http://www.butterflymarketing.com
Nov
10
Internet Marketing
Filed Under Internet Marketing | Leave a Comment
Internet marketing, also referred to as i-marketing, web-marketing, online-marketing, or e-Marketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet.
The Internet has brought media to a global audience. The interactive nature of Internet marketing in terms of providing instant response and eliciting responses, is a unique quality of the medium. Internet marketing is sometimes considered to have a broader scope because it not only refers to the Internet, e-mail, and wireless media, but it includes management of digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) systems.
Internet marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including: design, development, advertising, and sales.
Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, e-mail marketing, and Web 2.0 strategies. In 2008 The New York Times, working with comScore, published an initial estimate to quantify the user data collected by large Internet-based companies. Counting four types of interactions with company websites in addition to the hits from advertisements served from advertising networks, the authors found the potential for collecting data upward of 2,500 times on average per user per month.
Business models
Internet marketing is associated with several business models:
- e-commerce — this is where goods are sold directly to consumers (B2C) or businesses (B2B)
- Publishing — this is the sale of advertising
- lead-based websites — this is an organization that generates value by acquiring sales leads from its website
- affiliate marketing — this is process in which a product or service developed by one person is sold by other active seller for a share of profits. The owner of the product normally provide some marketing material (sales letter, affiliate link, tracking facility).
- local internet marketing – this is the process of a locally based company traditionally selling belly to belly and utilizing the Internet to find and nurture relationships, later to take those relationships offline.
- blackhat marketing – this is a form of internet marketing which employs deceptive, less than truthful methods to drive web traffic to a website or affiliate marketing offer. This method sometimes includes spam, cloaking within search engine result pages, or routing users to pages they didn’t initially request.
There are many other business models based on the specific needs of each person or the business that launches an Internet marketing campaign.
One-to-one approach
The targeted user is typically browsing the Internet alone therefore the marketing messages can reach them personally. This approach is used in search marketing, where the advertisements are based on search engine keywords entered by the user.
And now with the advent of Web 2.0 tools, many users can interconnect as “peers.”
Appeal to specific interests
Internet marketing and geo marketing places an emphasis on marketing that appeals to a specific behaviour or interest, rather than reaching out to a broadly-defined demographic. “On- and Off-line” marketers typically segment their markets according to age group, gender, geography, and other general factors. Marketers have the luxury of targeting by activity and geolocation. For example, a kayak company can post advertisements on kayaking and canoeing websites with the full knowledge that the audience has a related interest.
Internet marketing differs from magazine advertisements, where the goal is to appeal to the projected demographic of the periodical, but rather the advertiser has knowledge of the target audience—people who engage in certain activities (e.g., uploading pictures, contributing to blogs)— so the company does not rely on the expectation that a certain group of people will be interested in its new product or service.
Geo targeting
Geo targeting (in internet marketing) and geo marketing are the methods of determining the geolocation (the physical location) of a website visitor with geolocation software, and delivering different content to that visitor based on his or her location, such as country, region/state, city, metro code/zip code, organization, Internet Protocol (IP) address, ISP or other criteria.
Different content by choice
A typical example for different content by choice in geo targeting is the FedEx website at FedEx.com where users have the choice to select their country location first and are then presented with a different site or article content depending on their selection.
Automated different content
With automated different content in Internet marketing and geomarketing, the delivery of different content based on the geographical geolocation and other personal information is automated.
Advantages
Internet marketing is relatively inexpensive when compared to the ratio of cost against the reach of the target audience. Companies can reach a wide audience for a small fraction of traditional advertising budgets. The nature of the medium allows consumers to research and buy products and services at their own convenience. Therefore, businesses have the advantage of appealing to consumers in a medium that can bring results quickly. The strategy and overall effectiveness of marketing campaigns depend on business goals and cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis.
Internet marketers also have the advantage of measuring statistics easily and inexpensively. Nearly all aspects of an Internet marketing campaign can be traced, measured, and tested. The advertisers can use a variety of methods: pay per impression, pay per click, pay per play, or pay per action. Therefore, marketers can determine which messages or offerings are more appealing to the audience. The results of campaigns can be measured and tracked immediately because online marketing initiatives usually require users to click on an advertisement, visit a website, and perform a targeted action. Such measurement cannot be achieved through billboard advertising, where an individual will at best be interested, then choose to obtain more information at a later time..
Because exposure, response, and overall efficiency of Internet media are simpler to track than traditional off-line media—through the use of web analytics for instance—Internet marketing can offer a greater sense of accountability for advertisers. Marketers and their clients are becoming aware of the need to measure the collaborative effects of marketing (i.e., how the Internet affects in-store sales) rather than siloing each advertising medium. The effects of multichannel marketing can be hard to determine, but are an vital part of ascertaining the value of media campaigns.
Limitations
Internet marketing requires customers to use newer technologies rather than traditional media. Low-speed Internet connections are another barrier. If companies build large or overly-complicated websites, individuals connected to the Internet via dial-up connections or mobile devices experience significant delays in content delivery.
From the buyer’s perspective, the inability of shoppers to touch, smell, taste or “try on” tangible goods before making an online buy can be limiting. But, there is an industry standard for e-commerce vendors to reassure customers by having liberal return policies as well as providing in-store pick-up services.
A survey of 410 marketing executives listed the following barriers to entry for large companies looking to market online: insufficient ability to measure impact, lack of internal capability, and difficulty convincing senior management.
Security concerns
Information security is vital both to companies and consumers that participate in online business. Many consumers are hesitant to buy items over the Internet because they do not trust that their personal information will remain private. Encryption is the primary method for implementing privacy policies.
Recently some companies that do business online have been caught giving away or selling information about their customers. Several of these companies provide guarantees on their websites, claiming that customer information will remain private. Some companies that buy customer information offer the option for individuals to have their information removed from the database, also known as opting out. But, many customers are unaware if and when their information is being shared, and are unable to stop the transfer of their information between companies if such activity occurs.
Another major security concern that consumers have with e-commerce merchants is whether or not they will receive exactly what they buy. Online merchants have attempted to address this concern by investing in and building strong consumer brands (e.g., Amazon.com, eBay, Overstock.com), and by leveraging merchant/feedback rating systems and e-commerce bonding solutions. All of these solutions attempt to assure consumers that their transactions will be free of problems because the merchants can be trusted to provide reliable products and services. Additionally, the major online payment mechanisms (credit cards, PayPal, Google Checkout, etc.) have also provided back-end buyer protection systems to address problems if they really do occur.
Broadband-induced trends
Online advertising techniques have been dramatically affected by technological advancements in the telecommunications industry. In fact, many firms are embracing a new paradigm that is shifting the focus of online advertising from simple text ads to rich multimedia experiences. As a result, advertisers can more effectively engage in and manage online branding campaigns, which seek to shape consumer attitudes and feelings towards specific products. The critical technological development fueling this paradigm shift is Broadband.
In March 2005, roughly half of all American homes were equipped with broadband technology. By May 2008, broadband technologies had spread to more than 90% of all residential Internet connections in the United States. When one considers a Nielsen’s study conducted in June 2008, which estimated the number of U.S. Internet users as 220,141,969, one can calculate that there are presently about 199 million people in the United States utilizing broadband technologies to surf the Web.
As a result, all 199 million members of this burgeoning market have the ability to view TV-like advertisements with the click of a mouse. And to be sure, online advertisers are working feverishly to design rich multimedia content that will engender a “warm-fuzzy” feeling when viewed by their target audience. As connection speeds continue to increase, so will the frequency of online branding campaigns.
Effects on industries
The number of banks offering the ability to perform banking tasks online has also increased. Online banking is believed to appeal to customers because it is more convenient than visiting bank branches. Currently over 150 million U.S. adults now bank online, with increasing Internet connection speed being the primary reason for quick growth in the online banking industry.[citation needed] Of those individuals who use the Internet, 44 percent now perform banking activities over the Internet.[citation needed]
Internet auctions have gained popularity. Unique items that could only previously be found at flea markets are being sold on eBay. Specialized e-stores sell items ranging from antiques to movie props.[3][4] As the premier online reselling platform, eBay is often used as a price-basis for specialized items. Buyers and sellers often look at prices on the website before going to flea markets; the price shown on eBay often becomes the item’s selling price. It is increasingly common for flea market vendors to place a targeted advertisement on the Internet for each item they are selling online, all while running their business out of their homes.
The effect on the advertising industry itself has been profound. In just a few years, online advertising has grown to be worth tens of billions of dollars annually.[5][6][7] PricewaterhouseCoopers reported that US$16.9 billion was spent on Internet marketing in the U.S. in 2006.[8]
This has had a growing impact on the electoral process. In 2008 candidates for President heavily utilized Internet marketing strategies to reach constituents. During the 2007 primaries candidates added, on average, over 500 social network supporters per day to help spread their message.[9] President Barack Obama raised over US$1 million in a single day during his extensive Democratic candidacy campaign, largely due to online donors.
Nov
9
7 Figure Code Bonus – Pat Lovell
Filed Under 7 Figure Code | Leave a Comment
We’ve place together an awesome bonus package for the 7 Figure Code Video Series released by Mike Filsaime and Tom Beal. Our bonus is one that you can really use and make a small money from if you use it. We are offering an adsense getting started package that will help you earn some passive income.
Take a look at our Bonus Package – 7 Figure Code Bonus
I wanted to add, this isn’t your average video series, this is a recording of the 7 Figure Workshop event that Jon and I attended in February. The presentations and information in the videos will help you out with your internet business. If you are serious about your internet business this is a must see and the fact that it was a $5000 per ticket event makes the price of the DVD’s a literal steal.
Nov
9
The 7 Figure Code Review – Is It Worth The Money?
Filed Under 7 Figure Code, 7 Figure Code Review | Leave a Comment
I bought The 7 figure code within 10 minutes of it’s release, I watched and read everything. Now it’s review time. I had many questions before purchasing, just like I’m sure you do, questions such as “Is the 7 figurecode worth the money?”, and “Does it deliver on the claims made on that super long sales page?”, and “Will my wife leave me if I buy this program?” and even deep down in the lowest part of me whispering…”Is The 7 Figure Code A Scam?” Well this is my review of the 7 figure code.
Well, I said enough is enough, I am buying it any way. Guess what… I was absolutly amazed at the information that was contained in the program! I finally have the knowledge to take my success to the next level. You will not believe it! Even if I told you! 7 Figure Code Review" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.productreviewsite.info/7-figure-code.html" target="_blank">The 7 figure code is simple, simple to implement, and I guarantee you will be crying your small eyeballs out when you start seeing the money literally roll in. I know I am.
I have taken in over $1300 since I bought, and that was a small over 24 hours ago…. Now do you know why I am so pleased? I have never made over $200 a day in my life, now I am making $1300 dollars a day using the techniques of The 7 Figure Code! These videos are simply incredible! You will not believe the shocking secrets that are revealed in this course.
Look at all of the successful internet businesses and marketers that use these techniques. These guys are the cream of the crop. The best in the biz. The 7 Figure Code is what these guys used to get to the top! It doesn’t get any better than this. This method has been tested over many years, and is guaranteed to work.
I know you reckon it is a lot of money to spend, but trust me, you will not regret purchasing The 7 Figure Code. This formula absolutly rocks! You will not find these business and marketing secrets anywhere.
I Highly Recommend The 7 Figure Code!