Archive for June, 2009

25
Jun

Don’t worry.  This isn’t one of those advertisements disguised as a review where all I say is “of course it’s not a scam… now here’s my affiliate link”.

It’s been awhile since I have reviewed a new program like this.  Since I have been seeing ads for The Streamline Funnel System popping up everywhere I thought I would spend some time today checking it out. Afterall, I love “funnel systems” so maybe it was something worth joining.

I should probably point out that The Streamline Funnel System is currently in “pre-launch” until July 1st so there is pretty limited information as to how everything is going to work.  Still, that hasn’t stopped hundreds of marketers from promoting it all over the Internet as the “next big thing”.

Since the site is still in pre-launch there isn’t much info on the homepage.  Basically just a nice design by cheapminisites.com and a video from The Streamline Funnel System creator Paul Birdsall.

Inside the site there are a few videos explaining how the program is going to work and some advertising materials that you can use to recruit new members.  Oh, there’s is also a message that says “during pre-launch it’s crucial you personally sponsor people”.  No explanation why though.

Here’s what I have been able to gather about the way the program works.  Basically, Paul Birdsall has been hard at work for the last 14 months developing the latest Web 3.0 software that harvests double opt-in leads from the Internet.  For only $9.95/month you can send your ads to 10,000 of these exclusive leads every month.  Wow!

Ok, let’s break it down.  First, can someone please explain what exactly “Web 3.0” is?  I mean, we all know that “Web 2.0” was a huge buzz word a few years ago when social networking sites started taking off… but what the heck is “Web 3.0”?  I assume if I don’t understand it then it must be something pretty awesome.  Right?

Paul claims his software harvests double opt-in leads.  Does everybody understand what “double opt-in” means?  These are leads that have specifially given you permission to email them.  First they say “Please email me”, then you  say “are you sure?”, and they say “yes, I am positive”.  These are some of the best leads you can get.  Spending $1 to get one of these leads on your list is generally considered to be pretty good.  10,000 of these leads for $9.95 is extraordinary!  I have to admit though, something about using the word “harvest” makes me think these aren’t exactly double opt-in leads.

I should also point out that the leads you get from The Streamline Funnel System are “exclusive” leads.  That means every member will get 10,000 different leads.  Sweet!  But wait, maybe we should do some math first…

According to my user id about 5,000 people have joined The Streamline Funnel System so far.  It’s safe to say that by the way people are promoting this thing there will be at least another 1,000 people by the time they launch next week.  That’s 6,000 members.  Obviously not all 6,000 people are going to pay the $9.95 on launch day but lets say they did.  6,000 members x 10,000 = 60,000,000 exclusive double opt-in leads.  60 million!  That’s twice the population of Canada!

Obviously that is a lot of leads but Paul isn’t really clear about what you can do with these leads.  You see the way the “income opportunity” part of The Streamline Funnel System works is that when someone you refer to the site orders additional leads you earn a commission.  They aren’t saying how much these extra leads cost but since your commission on an additional 10,000 leads is $50 I am assuming it costs a bit more than that.  They seem to imply that your 10,000 leads will be used to automatically recruit new members to your Streamline Funnel System site.  When the leads sign-up and buy the additional leads you make free money.

I can understand why people would be willing to pay $9.95/month to try this but who’s is going to pay hundreds of dollars on extra lead packages without testing it out the first 10,000 leads?  I suppose if you get enough sign-ups it’s possible a few will try extra lead packages eventually but the videos talk about earning thousands of dollars a month and “all you have to do is join and push a button”.

I should mention that I also did a little research on Paul Birdsall who is the creator of The Streamline Funnel System and found some interesting information.  I don’t want to personally smear the guy on my blog but I did find information about quite a few other programs that he has run in the past which are obviously not making anybody any money today.  Anybody who is interested in joining The Streamline Funnel System should probably go to google and do a search for Paul Birdsall to get a better understanding of what they are getting into.

That’s about it.  So is The Streamline Funnel System a scam?  Since the site is still in pre-launch and I haven’t personally shelled out the money to try it I guess I can’t say for sure.  I will say that if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck… it’s probably a duck.

11
Jun

It’s been 3 days since I launched my Safelist Marketing Tactics website and so far I have been very happy with the results.

Have you joined yet?

http://www.SafelistTactics.com

Since Monday I have had almost 800 people join and the site has generated close to $900 in sales.  Not epic numbers by an means but this was a pretty small launch.  Now that I am a little more confident that I know what I am doing I think I should be able to pull off something a little bit bigger next time.

I must admit that I was also a little hesitant to release something I had personally written to such a large audience.  I am not a professional writer.  I usually just write the way I speak.  Based on the feedback I have received it sounds like I at least did a pretty good job of offering some valuable content which is what I was shooting for anyways.

I was planning to get started on my next project right away but I think I am going to spend some time expanding the Safelist Marketing Tactics site.  I
have some great ideas to help make the site a little more valuable to free members and also help the upgraded members earn more money.

If you haven’t joined yet I would love to have you as a member.  Even if you are not really interested in safelist marketing the membership site is still an interesting business model that you can use to build your own business.

Check it out here:

http://www.SafelistTactics.com

Safelist Marketing Tactics
8
Jun

Launch day!

Ok, you have been waiting a long time for this and so have I.

Introducing… Safelist Marketing Tactics

Hooray!

The site has been up for about an hour now and already 40 new members have joined.  Very cool.

The last few days were spent going over some really minor details to make sure I had all my bases covered.  Also fixed some really dumb errors that I missed after going over the site a few hundred times (thanks Tony Tezak!)

So why safelists?  It just seemed like everything related to traffic exchanges had been done to death but hardly anybody was doing anything new with safelists.  There’s only one other really good safelist ebook that I can think of and very few free ones that are worth reading.  I also get really good results from safelist marketing ever since I started applying the techniques I learned from using traffic exchanges.  I thought that would be something of value that I could share.

What now?  I’m going to go on a bit of an advertising blitz for a few days.  I’ll probably look and see where I am in about a week and then from there hopefully I will move on to my next project.

Until then.. go ahead and click the image below to join Safelist Marketing Tactics.

Click Here to Join

6
Jun

Note to self… Make sure to disable the membership sign-up page until the site actually launches.

Yesterday I woke up to find one of my partners had starting sending traffic to my site even though I told him we wasn’t launching until Monday.  Before I could catch it about 50 people managed to get in and some of them had even started promoting it themselves.  Eeek!

I disabled the start-up page and let everyone know not to start promoting it until Monday.  Hopefully no real damage was done by letting a few people take a peek at the site a few days early.

The good news is that everything works!  The sales page is converting extremely well and so are the special offers.  I am now feeling much more excited about Monday’s launch and much less nervous.

The launch date is still set for Monday, June 8th @ 12:00 Noon EST.

Make sure you check back here Monday morning for more inf0rmation.

1
Jun

T-minus 1 week to launch!

Launch is set for Monday, June 8th @ Noon EST.

Everything is set and ready to go for my first membership site… and much sooner than expected.

Last week I hired Jay Hines (Quick Tab Change) to do a little custom programming on the site.  I knew that was something I was going to need to do after I finished my product but I was factoring in at least a week for him to get it done.  I spotted Jay in the Affiliate Funnel conference room and told him what I wanted.  20 minutes later it was done!

With the site completed I spent some time last week sending out emails looking for JV partners.  I wasn’t expecting a huge response but I was surprised by how many people didn’t bother to respond at all.  The good news is that I got a few people who I know are going to be able to bring in a huge amount of traffic to the site.  The important thing to remember is that it never hurts to ask.

For the last few days I have been writing emails to put into my autoresponder.  That has taken longer than expected.  It’s been almost a year since I have written an entire email series but I think I have gotten much better at it.  I have essentially written an ecourse on Internet marketing that I will be sharing with the members of my site.  I am pretty excited about it.

If you are not sure how to write autoresponder emails I highly recommend reading Soren’s Internet Marketing Success Formula.  Really good stuff.

With everything being done I am not quite sure what to do for the next week.  I’ll probably write a few more promo emails for the members but otherwise I am ready to go.

Maybe I will get a head start on launching my 2nd membership site.