Tyson-Faulkner.com
The online home of Tyson Faulkner

I've decided that I don't post to my blog nearly often enough, so I am going to start a complete, step by step tutorial that will give me something to post about in a sequential order. So here's what I'm going to do…

I know that one of the hardest things to do when you're getting started with internet marketing is focusing down to one project and really working on that.

When you're new I think the most important project to focus on is building a list in your market. It doesn't matter if you're in the gardening niche, gaming niche, or IM niche, a list of people who are interested in your subject will be an extremely valuable asset in your business (maybe the most valuable).

Once you have a list you will be able to send instant traffic anywhere, have leverage to get JV partners, and make it easy to make monthly income with affiliate sales. Building this audience will be key for your business to thrive.

Some marketers will tell you that you should immediately sell something and build a list of paying customers right out of the gate. The only problem I have with this is if you're just getting started, then it's hard to sell something. It took me a long time before I created a product that I thought was worth money. Of course this is mostly just a mental block, but until you have enough experience in your market then you may not have the confidence to move forward and ask for money.

Another thing to consider is that it takes a lot of work to create a product. It's not like all you have to do is write a 30 page word document. There's other things that go into a product like sales copy, payment processing, graphics, etc. that can be very hard for someone new to wrap their head around. So start simple.

After you do have a list of people who signed up to get something free from you, then you can turn those people who already know you into buyers once you do release a product of your own.

But for the time being, there's no harm in giving good stuff away for free then selling proven affiliate products to your list. Another bonus of doing this is that once you do create a product of your own, you can go to the owners of the affiliate products you've been selling and many times they will be happy to promote your product because you've been helping them out by selling theirs.

This post is rapidly getting much longer than I intended. So I'm going to try to wrap it up…

Here's the bottom line:

BUILDING A LIST IS IMPORTANT!

So I want to show you the simplest way you can start building a list fast. My goal is to post a new step once every couple days for you to work on. Each step is going to be insanely simple and easy to implement. If you just follow the steps that I lay out you will have your list up and running by the time we get done. Subscribers will be coming into your account and your online business will be officially started (if it's not already)

I was originally going to put this all into a book and charge for it, but I decided that I would rather deliver it in a step by step tutorial fashion so anyone can access it and get their business started fast and easily. That way it will be available to reference any time online on my blog.

I would really like this to be as interactive as possible. I want to know what steps you're struggling with and how I can better help you. So please let me know if you have questions using the comments below and I'll get them answered as we go. And even if you get in a little late, I always check the comments so don't hesitate to comment on an older post, I WANT to hear from you!

I'm really excited to get this started (and I hope you are too!) so I'm going to get to work and I'll see you in a couple days! If you haven't yet, subscribe to the RSS feed and you'll be able to get instantly updated when I post the next step.

Have a great sunday!

Tyson

Ever wondered if there's any money to be made with all the so-called "crappy" traffic there is out there?

I'm talking about safelists, traffic exchanges, list builder sites, FFA sites, etc

I know many marketers stray away from this kind of traffic because it's seen as worthless and not worth devoting any time to. In large part, I've taken this same stance, but now I'm going to put it to the test.

Over the next 30 days, I'm going to test the heck out of all these "crappy" traffic sources. And I would challenge you to come along for the ride!

Here's my plan:

I'm going to be testing 3 main sources of "crappy" traffic.

1. Safelists – These are double opt-in email lists where you get to blast out tons of emails to thousands or millions of inboxes. Does anyone ever read these things? Let's find out.
2. Traffic Exchanges – This is where you view other sites to get your site seen by others. The catch is that your visitors are just viewing your site to get their site shown, they aren't really interested in what you have to offer. So it's my job to catch their attention and grab the opt-in.
3. List builder sites – You've heard about them before, ListJoe, Listdotcom, ListBandit, ViralUrl, etc. You sign up for a free account and build your list by referring others to the sites.

I'll be updating my blog with the results I get roughly once every few days or week.

Now I know that these types of advertising get put down a lot. But think about this…Who is using these types of traffic generation methods? Mostly newer marketers trying to get started right? What better prospects can you target?

They aren't experienced marketers who know everything, and they aren't just discovering the internet and know nothing either. The people that use these things are the perfect target market, it's just a matter of getting their attention.

So here's the gameplan:

THE OFFER

My whole goal with this case study is to build my list. To get the opt-in, I am giving away my ebook, "13 Profit-Killing Squeeze Page Blunders" as seen in the sidebar of my blog.

Since the people that use these types of advertising are looking to get traffic or to get more out of their current traffic, I think this is a pretty good fit.

I've got a simple squeeze page that I'm sending traffic to. For the traffic exchanges I am using a combination of squeeze/splash pages since they need to get attention quick.

After opting-in to my list, new subscribers are taken to a one-time-offer where they can buy a huge package of MRR and PLR products at a super-discounted price. This is where initial costs will be made up.

THE TRAFFIC PLAN

Source #1 – Safelists:

So far I've joined 3 safelists for free:

1. Your Ad Blaster
   
2. Bulk List
   
3. Ad Tactics
   

And paid to join one safelist submitter: I Post Ad

I'm using these every day to blast out an email to their lists. To join Ipostad it's only $12.95/ month so 1 sale will more than make up for it.

Source #2 – Traffic Exchanges:

Traffic exchanges are a little more involved than safelists. To get the most out of them you really need to spend some time everyday to earn credits and get your ad shown.

This is the controversial part…is it worth spending the time surfing these things to get the traffic from them? Well that's what I plan to find out…

I've found 8 traffic exchanges that have a high member count and compliment each other pretty well. In fact, by surfing some of them at the same time you can get bonuses across all of them. So this seems to be the best way to earn credits fast.

Here's the list that I joined:

• I Love Hits
  
• Traffic Splash
  
• Dragon Surf
  
• StartXChange
  
• Traffic Punk
  
• Traffic Witch
  
• Hit 2 Hit
  
• Easy Hits 4 U
  

I've found that I can surf all of these at the same time and keep up with the timers fairly well.

I upgraded my account with the one time offers at I Love Hits, Traffic Splash, and StartXChange. These had the best deals and will give me instant credits to get my site shown, as well as banners and text links (which I will be testing down the road). Plus they make my surfing time much more effective.

My plan is to surf these 8 exchanges every day for about an hour or so. This should provide a constant stream of visitors to my splash pages.

Right now I'm testing two different splash pages, one with an opt-in box, and one with a link to my squeeze page. We'll see which one performs better. Check em out below.

1. Page with link: http://tyson-faulkner.com/splash.html
2. Page with opt-in box: http://tyson-faulkner.com/splash1.html

Source #3 – List Builder Sites

These sites work a little differently, and are basically a glorified safelist. The members of these sites get much less email from the sites so they are more targeted and more likely to perform better. The only problem with these sites is that if you join for free you can't really email anyone because you haven't built a downline yet.

To get around this little problem, I did a little research and found two sites that are very popular, and decided to take the one time offer upgrade in each of them.

The two list sites I joined are:

• List Joe
  
• Viral URL
  

By upgrading my account, I am allowed to send out an email to 3000 of their members (each) every three days, so in one month I will be able to reach 60,000 people between the two sites.

I think the biggest key to using these types of traffic is testing everything. And that's exactly what I plan to do so I can cut the losers and work on the winners.

So that's the plan!

I'll be testing different emails, subject lines, landing pages, throughout the month, and explaining the results I get here on my blog. So keep updated and we'll see how it goes!

If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave a comment and let me know.

-Tyson