But, wait a second. I have to use it within the next 2 months (pet only goes in every 6 months) and they didn’t send me a letter with my pets name wrong/incorrect. Hmm. Marketing tactic?

Let’s investigate. Upon talking to the neighbors with pets, they too received the coupon. It appears to be a mass mailing.

Wow, my vet is pretty smart!! Good marketing tactic, I think…?

If it wasn’t for someone like me to realize the marketing tactic here people would just assume they must have missed the letter and go ahead and schedule their pets next checkout right away. Afterall, it saves them $10!! Or, does it?

Depending on the cycle of when you normally bring your pet in, they could be getting you to come in up to X months sooner than you would have by enticing you with the $10 savings. Let’s say I went in 2 months ago and wasn’t due to go back with my pet for another 4 months. By using this coupon I would be coming in 2 months earlier, in turn making the vet more money faster. Who knows maybe they would try to get me to come in early again the next time to have me pay for more visits per year.

I would also like to point out that the addressing on the envelope is VERY automated. They didn’t check their individual letters very carefully and my first name and last name have many extra spaces between them. Certainly not a personal mailing for a small group of people.

So, I’ll let you guys decide. Was this a mass mailing with or without an intentional marketing tactic?

Also, how could this be applied online to use it as a marketing tactic?

How does a president win an election? Largely related to public perception in getting votes.

How does a movie studio sell a lot of tickets to a movie? Leveraging public perception to like something about the movie, such as the stars attached to it, the theme/story of movie, etc.

How does an affiliate network become the top dog? Leveraging the public perception that they are the best network and the place to be.

Without manipulating public perception in some way, our marketing efforts would be close to useless. We’d be forced to stick to “big deals” that don’t involve a mass of consumers. Without a great public perception we’d pretty much be limited to b2b (business to business) type of deals, that don’t have mass consumers involved. And even b2b deals involve perception that you are going to benefit the company you’re dealing with!

Recently in Los Angeles, CA they decided to close down the biggest state highway called the 405. It’s essentially the backbone of traffic from Los Angeles to points North and South. The news hyped it up and called it “Carmaggeddon” and Carpocalypse” as if it was going to be one of the worst traffic weekends in the history of Los Angeles. They told people to just stay off the roads because they would get stuck in traffic anywhere within Los Angeles.

This public perception (so far as of 3pm on the first day of the 405 closure) has freaked out so many people that they have mostly stayed home and the opposite has happened, nobody is on the road because of the fear and perception that it’s going to be so bad if they add to the traffic. Wow some great marketing minds were at work here to actually put fear in enough peoples eyes.

This got me thinking of how we as marketers can utilize public perception and even fear tactics to our advantage to get people to do what we want to do (or what we don’t want them to do) in mass. It’s interesting that it can be just as valuable to get someone to do what you don’t want them to do (such as sign up for a competing affiliate network or competitor.)

It reinforces that theory that if enough people make something an issue, it will be an issue and people will take actions (like not driving on the road this weekend in Los Angeles) just because of the extreme hype behind it. The people essentially are saying “the city officials advised us to stay off the roads because it’s going to be bad, and I have to assume they are right, so I’ll stay off the road and not be a “bad guy” for adding to the traffic”. When in reality they just bought into the hype and didn’t want to feel like a bad person for potentially adding to a problem.

So in a sense, the city officials did do their job to freak out enough Los Angeles residents to stay off the road. But, the interesting thing is that most news outlets are now reporting “the roads are clear!” and we’ll see if people actually stay off the roads or if they now start to trickle onto the roads since the news has said they are clear. If enough people are now convinced in reverse that the roads are clear and everyone is staying home, everyone might try to go out now.

Either way it’s an interesting lesson on public perception and how people listen to figures of authority and hype, even if in the back of their mind they know that those authority figures are using scare tactics and manipulation techniques to get what they want. Convince the entire city of Los Angeles to stay off the roads? Great marketing.

Have any of you ever felt manipulated by an online product launch?

What other ways does public manipulation and perception play a role in legitimate marketing?

With any business that many people are not familiar with, there are many myths that are not true.

Myth #1 – Consultants have to be on the phone or in meetings all the time.

While it’s true that clients do need to call meetings here and there, there’s nothing in the Local Consultant handbook that says that you have to be in meetings all day. In fact, most consultants do best and get most done for their clients outside of meetings. Personally, consulting that I’ve done, I find that most meetings are merely updates than anything else and a lot of the clients that I work with don’t need to be handheld, they just need someone (me) that has expertise in a certain area in which they do not.

Myth #2 – Consultants are “on call” all the time by their clients.

This also could not be further from the truth. In fact, even when I have a major client or two, they still don’t utilize all my time and if they did they wouldn’t be getting my best work because I would be overwhelmed. I’m very cautious about who I work with because I don’t want to be forced into a corner, I like to be free from restrictions and able to work the way I work best, my own way. It’s called effective time management. If you sign a consulting deal and agree to give all of your time, you are not a consultant, you are an employee. Huge difference! Just be upfront in the beginning in terms of how much of your time you are committing at a given rate. If they won’t agree to it, ask for more money or turn it down. There is a lot of power in turning things down. Trust me, there are millions of companies that need consultants all over the world. There is not shortage of work, you just have to learn how to position yourself.

Myth #3 – You need experience being a consultant to be a consultant.

People that ask me this question clearly just have a few screws loose. If you think about it, this is impossible. If you HAVE to have experience being a consultant to be a consultant, then there would be no consultants. In fact, I started as a consultant after I had done successful projects on my own, it wasn’t until way later that I started working with other companies, and eventually I got into consulting a bit, which I still do today a bit with CPA networks and some local businesses and that accounts for roughly 20% of my income, in total. And I’ll be damned if it would take up anywhere near all of my time. That’s the reason I’m effective because I can agree to be a consultant for a couple different companies for a relatively small amount of money, whereas if I charged what I’m actually worth and tried to make 100% of my income from consulting, it would be very expensive and impossible for companies to pay out that kind of money. I also like to keep some room open in-case any additional dream clients come along, I don’t like to feel tied down.

Consulting can be quite fulfilling.

Let’s say that there is a project that you really want to do and you know a company with a budget and means to put you in a position to start a project. This is where consulting becomes really fun. Essentially you can now have the means to start the project that you didn’t have the budget for and have a team around you (this company);  The key is simply getting more than a flat fee to stay motivated beyond your weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly pay. Make sure you charge what you are worth or you will regret it!

Don’t be offended if a client doesn’t follow your master plan.

This was one of the hardest realities I had to face when starting as a consultant years and years ago. Many clients simply value your input and your objections but may never take action on a single thing you suggest, even though you are still providing value in this case, factors beyond your control doesn’t get the action items in place. This is something you can’t blame on yourself, because you can tell someone something is going to work till you are blue in the face but if they don’t go with it, you can’t spend the rest of your life trying to convince them. This is something more consultants need to learn early on that they are simply a tool rather than the CEO. The consultants don’t have the final call, that’s just how it is. Now if you were a project manager, expectations would be totally different. Don’t let you ego get in the way, and at the end of the day if you know they are going to make $1,000s of dollars more per day by following your plan than creating their own, and they don’t agree to it, there’s only so much you can do to convince them.

Steps to become a Local Consultant

1. Find a mentor. I’ll post more about this in the next week.
   
2. Start talking to local businesses about their needs.
3. Position yourself as the solution to their needs (make sure you can back up your claims.)
4. Repeat for all of the small businesses in town, start small and grow until you are working with online clients like Google or whoever else is right around your corner.

It bothers me when affiliates approach me and say that they can’t think of any way to get cash to do their affiliate marketing in the paid traffic realm. Pick one of the 3 options below depending on your situation, credit history and contacts and enjoy the benefits

Amex Plum

The benefit for Affiliate Marketers is that you can Defer up to 90% of your balance for 30 days.

Here’s a scenario. You charge $5,000 up on your Amex Plum, and considering it’s in their “Open” line you can usually charge $5k, $10k without much of a problem. There’s technically no limit. Now, you’ve charged $5k for a media buy or something like that and now you only owe 10% after your billing cycle is up if you choose to defer it  (up to 30 days depending on when you charge it) then in additional if you pay that 10% you have another 30 days until your next billing cycle to pay the remainder. There is no interest at all on this. Basically free money for an extra 45-60 days, interest free.

Strategic Investors

I’ve been known for doing this from time to time. I’ll approach an investor and give them a nice cut in exchange for funding. I’ll usually only do this if I know it’s going to cost more money than I have in my piggy bank at the moment or if I’m already tapped out on my Amex Plum for the month. $5k, $10k for an investor is nothing in exchange for the potentially (very) rewarding returns that affiliate marketing can bring.

Don’t know any investors and don’t have any contacts? Start talking to people about what you are doing. Chances are if you are doing something profitable enough someone will just stand up and make you an offer you can’t refuse. I’ve had people make me offers without really even hinting that I was looking for funding. It’s all about transparency and just talking to people to setup these kind of strategic investor / partnerships.

Small Business Loan

I’ve taken these out before. If you have a little history of spending X and making X+Y then you can easily get one. You just tell them that you need additional capital to scale up your business and show them proof that the advertising is working. Simple as that they will give you a loan with that kind of proof and history. Walk in to any bank on your corner and you can easily get $10k, $20k or more. The interest will be dependent on your credit though, so you need good credit to not get hammered on fees. If you already have good credit sometimes you can get a pretty low rate and then make extra payments each month (or pay it off in full when your big checks roll in).

The man in the pictures is a real homeless man from Massachusetts. He was paid (handsomely) for his time and very happy to be a part of this.

For some of the other promotional efforts, check out a Short Film that I created called The Book Signing.

I’m great at finding ways to increase profitability in things. That’s what I’m known for outside of List Building.

I’m always tweaking, testing and looking at things with a sideways face, trying to see how I can make even more money.

So, the story starts several years ago now. I was starting off in the SEO world and building up massive article based content sites for the purposes of eventually making money off of them (with Adsense.)

I was lucky enough to find some pretty quick success in the whole SEO content site world.

I was seeing very big checks from Google and other companies.

Anyways, to make a long story short. I wanted to further explain how to flip Adsense into Affiliate Product revenue.

It’s actually quite simple and I’m surprised more people aren’t doing it.

It’s my newest hobby to buy sites that are making like $300-1000/month Adsense revenue and make it my mission to add 0′s to the end of those monthly earnings by using my Adsense -> Email List -> Affiliate Products Strategy.

It’s way more common than you think, especially when you are dealing with a lot of outsourcers at once.

The average week, I’m outsourcing a minimum of 5 tasks. Often times, from total strangers.

Here’s a little technique that I developed on how to NOT get ripped off.

If you follow these technique it will weed out a lot of headaches, I promise you.

The quality check

The first thing that should be pretty obvious is to ask for references and sample work. If they take more than 15 minutes to send you these while you are engaged in a live conversation, then that should throw up a red flag.

The work progress payment arrangement

Don’t agree to pay an upfront amount, especially if this is the first time you’ve worked with this person. Rather, you should structure payment so that they get 50% of the payment after 50% of the work is completed and the remaining 50% after 100% of the work is completed.

This arrangement makes sense for both sides, because their work would be useless at only 50% completion and they are also proving to you that they can complete 50% before taking your money.

Don’t pay through any shady payment methods

Don’t use Western Union or any other commonly “used to scam” payment methods. If they can’t get paypal or a traditional payment method then that should throw up a huge red flag. Even if they have done the first 50% of the work, doesn’t mean that they are going to do the last 50% if you pay them with a Western Union type payment. The problem with those kinds of payments is that you have almost 0 recourse should they rip you off.

Use Escrow services and a Contract if it’s a big project

If it’s a big project make sure that you use an Escrow service or defer payment until a lot of the work has been completed. You don’t want to be out thousands of dollars paying up front. Also, it’s a good idea to have it in writing exactly what should happen and when. Especially if you’re shelling out a mid-high 4 or 5 figure amount.

The reason why 100% upfront payment is almost always bad for small services

The problem with a $50-100 up front payment for an outsourced graphic design or programming task is that if they have 100% payment upfront it gives them little backend motivation. Every single time I have done this the work has come in much slower than work that I’ve only paid 50% or less up front.

Start using the same people that have done good work, but don’t let the payment terms get lax

Some people out there will turn on the ‘scam’ button after the first project. I’ve seen it happen over and over. It’s even happened to me. You do a first project with them and it goes perfect. Then, by the time the second project comes around, they request 100% up front payment because of your existing relationship. While it’s sometimes ok, it’s sometimes not ok. I’ve come across several scammers that will actually outsource your work to someone else, sometimes at a loss to get your attention. Then, when the next job comes around , they ask for Western Union payment up front, take your money and run.

Just be careful and use common sense when dealing with outsourcers

I know many people that have been taken and it almost always comes down to structuring their payment on more of a performance basis than an ‘all up front’ type of scenario. Some of these guys don’t have a reputation to hurt and they are willing to run with even $100.

As I jot down some things that I want to get done today, I find out about this Celtics/Dunkin Donuts event at my local Dunkin Donuts with Ray Allen.

I decide to take the show on the road and get some work done in a different environment.

So, I arrive at Dunkin Donuts and I’m hanging out working on some things on my laptop and writing doing things in my notebook.

I’m very productive when I have caffeine, so I pick up an Iced Coffee – which also makes me eligible to be selected for the event.

Next thing I notice is that they are walking around telling people it’s all going down outside, and that’s where they are going to be selecting people to take part in the challenge to possibly win a chance to compete vs. Ray Allen in a game of knockout (winners would get tickets to the Home opener tomorrow vs Miami Heat.)

They tell us to form a line as I’m sitting there working on a few things, making a few calls and grinding out some work but paying careful attention to everything that is going on.

A man in front of me calls over one of the people from the event and asks how we can participate. They let him know that there will be 5 rounds of “foul shot contests” and the winners from each of the 5 games will participate with Ray in a showdown with the winners. In order to be selected for this you must be “caught cold” drinking Iced Coffee.

So, at this point, I’m thinking to myself that I’m good to go… in the front of the line, there’s not even 25 people here yet and I’ve got my Iced Coffee. I’ll make sure they see me drinking it to get in.

A good amount of time goes by, there are about 50 people in the line behind me. I’m within the first 5.

Finally, the WAAF announcer goes to the court and reiterates what the person from earlier had said about there being a chance to play vs Ray Allen and that if you are “caught cold” you could be selected to come up and participate in one of the 5 games…

The winners would go on to a showdown with Ray in a game of Knockout, and tickets would be given out to tomorrow nights Celtics vs. Heat home opener game at TD Garden in Boston.

A little bit more time goes by and Lucky the team mascot shows up and they are about to start.

At this point the line has moved up but I’m still right in front of the ropes court side, there’s no way they won’t see me drinking Iced Coffee.

Before I know it the cheerleaders are walking around selecting people to participate in the first game. I see a lot of kids trying to get their attention, so I back off and let the kids have the first shot. Plus, it wouldn’t be cool to be participating vs kids to win something.

2nd round is the same thing, mostly kids, so I pass again.

Finally round 3 comes around and I see some people that look my age who are trying to get the cheerleaders attention, before I know it just by looking in their general direction they are waving me over. Cool, I’m about to get to shoot foul shots and if I win I move on to the 2nd round with Ray!

They take down my information and I’m up 3rd.

The first 2 people only make 1 or 2 foul shots each, out of 5.

I’m up next. Before I give you the outcome, let me tell you that I was a 90% foul shot shooter when I used to play. I used to shoot thousands and thousands of foul shots as a kid and had a dream of one day being in the NBA. Unfortunately, injuries and ankle issues kept me away from those dreams.

So, I walk to the foul line. My nerves are up, I want to win. I brick the first shot, badly… uh oh… Is it the cold? Am I really nervous? Is it my knee surgery? Am I rusty? As I’m thinking all of the above, I find personal motivation from within…. I have tons of opportunity around me, here’s just a little cool chance thing that would be awesome to witness history and see probably one of the biggest games ever… the first time these 2 teams will face each-other with their new rosters. Tickets are pretty much sold out, the only other way to get them would be to spend a truck load of cash on eBay.

I proceed to make the next 4 shots in a row. I get 4 out of 5. The announcer is going crazy, people are cheering. I do a little flex as I walk away from the foul line. Awesome!

As it happens nobody in my group makes more than 2 shots, I’m the winner from my group!

They hand me a few $2 Dunkin Donuts gift cards, take down my information and tell me to stand aside as the other groups come. The showdown with Ray Allen will be later on.

Woohooo!

But wait… fast forward to 4pm and I am walking away with my head down, no tickets, and I never got to compete against Ray Allen with the other winners.

So what went wrong?

Well, I wish I knew…

I was talking with one of the other winners from another group and me and him were joking with the other about how we were going to beat each-other. It was “interesting” that most of us were 20s white males, coincidentally.

So, finally Ray Allen shows up at 3pm. I go snap a picture of his car. Nice BMW, almost as nice as my last BMW

People are going CRAZY, screaming, the announcer from WAAF and Lucky the mascot have everyone chanting “RAY ALLEN!”.

Wohoo!

So, I move over back to the spot they told us to wait in. This time it’s much harder to get back in over there. People are swarming to get close after they announced that Ray is finally here.

I get sort of back to where I was but there is still a big wall of people. Cops are in place now and they aren’t really letting anyone move around. I’m wearing a special winners shirt so I try to show them that to get back in, no soup.

I grab one of the other guys that won his group of 5 and ask him what’s going on, where are we supposed to be…?

Next thing we know Ray is walking out. We try to get back in, the cops aren’t informed of what’s going on and we can’t really get in.

OK… I guess they are just going to call us in from the audience and people will clear a path for us…

Ray gets into place and does a little thank you for everyone coming out.

The announcer grabs the mic back and calls up the participants. He starts announcing them… but WAIT, my name doesn’t get called as I try to push my way up there… What’s going on? Who are these other people… they didn’t win Round 1????

Myself and the other guy I’ve been busting about beating him in the game with Ray, go up to one of the people we were talking to earlier about all of this.

“What’s going on, who are these other people!? Why aren’t we up there?”

They act like they can’t hear us (it was loud, but we were practically yelling…)

They say, “These are the people we are using.” and they walk away…

The police officer tells us to back away from the ropes & camera crew over in the corner.

Me and the other guy look at each-other… WHAT?!

We proceed to get pretty irritated and try to get someones attention from the event, but with a loud microphone and fans screaming for Ray… nobody even acknowledges us. We get nowhere fast.

Here’s the kicker.

Remember how I said that it was mostly 20s something white males?

I get a look at the “other group” of people and it’s a fully balanced group of different races, ages and genders! WOW…. HMMM………

Yep, it looks like I was  just racially discriminated on because I won a contest with 4 other 20s something white males by the event put on by the Celtics, Dunkin Donuts and WAAF Radio!

What’s the lesson here? What does this have to do with marketing? Am I just ranting?

Well, yes, I am ranting. But there is actually a lesson here.

It shows how the reputation of major brands like Celtics and Dunkin Donuts can get bad press by having shady stuff like this happen. Was it incompetence? Was it the Celtics fault? Not necessarily. Was it Dunkin Donuts fault? Not necessarily. Was it WAAFs/the event organizers fault? Not necessarily.

Maybe it was the organizers, maybe it was internally rigged, it’s hard to say… I’m leaning towards RIGGED at this point.

I hope you guys do the right thing and re-tweet this, re-post and really make people accountable for something like this.

The funny part is, I’m looking at this more like a press piece and a “what NEVER to do to your fans/followers”…….

Don’t rig contests!

Don’t hire incompetent people!

And this type of stuff would never happen and people like me would never be going to the lengths of posting this stuff.

I used to LOVE the Celtics and Dunkin Donuts… now I’m not so sure what they are doing and who they are hiring these days…

Oh, and all of the people that participated in the game with Ray got 2 tickets each.

I used to make decent money with CPA Lead back in the day.

I’m now with BLAM Ads, which is doing really well for some of my friends. I’m going to start using them for some of my sites in other niches.

So why is Content Locking the 900 pound gorilla?

I’ll give you two reasons.

1. Content-locking means you get to INCENTIVIZE your visitors… you know, like a bribe. Complete this survey to view my content.
2. Content-locking means you interrupt your visitors from what they wanted to see, tease them and possibly increase the perceived value of your free content… essentially making your own content more valuable!

But won’t this frustrate my visitors?

Yes and no. Some will be frustrated and not do it. A lot of others, as mentioned above, will perceive your content as MORE valuable because it’s harder to access. This will mean that the people that do see your content are going to read it, interact with your site and you are usually going to get a higher quality visitor.

What kind of money are people making?

Well, that entirely depends on your traffic. It’s all about volume here. You’ll get somewhere under $2 bucks per conversion usually for the surveys and types of offers that are used with content locking. Multiply that times 20,000 uniques per day on a nice traffic site and you’re talking about a lot of money.

Here’s where you probably think I’m crazy, you probably think nobody is going to take action if we don’t have a CALL TO action. Not necessarily the case.

The real point of this post is not necessarily about removing your call to action, it’s about not relying on your call to action.

Let’s say I have a really great article, video, case study, whatever and it’s getting major attention. It’s the next best thing since Angry Birds for the iPhone. People are passing it around virally, it’s all over the place and thousands upon thousands of people are seeing this.

The next thing that happens is that people are so impressed with this content that they start contacting me for interviews, services, you name it.

The above is actually part of a true story btw

Ok, so here’s where the use of NO call to actions comes in.

If I were to put a big CALL TO ACTION right next to this amazing piece of content, a certain percentage of people (depending on the specific call to action) would start to discredit the content.

Here’s what they might say:

“Oh, he made that content to get us to buy something else… the content is actually not that good.” (Even though they already thought it was good 5 minutes ago before they saw the call to action.)

In other words, I could be lowering the perceived value by then making it obvious to a percentage of people that I’m trying to get them to do something else. Maybe even make money off of them in some form or another.

The other problem and maybe this is even a bigger problem is that marketers make their call to action the main draw. That’s their marketing strategy, to use a good call to action. NOT to create good content. And, that is very very flawed in almost all cases!