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How I Deal With Marketing Spam

by Eric Transue on March 9, 2010

As an Internet Marketer, I like to keep an eye on what others are doing.  I have a list of blogs that I check on a regular basis.  Following others gives me a better idea of what is and is not working.

When I purchase a course or Internet Marketing product I am usually added to their list.  Sometimes, the follow up emails are really helpful.  Other times they are like little salesmen popping up in my inbox three, four or five times a week.  Some of these guys promote anything that will pay them a commission.  I can tell that most of it is crap.  A quick way to lose my trust is to try and sell me crap.  Now I don’t mind someone alerting me to a product if they actually think it will help.  But if you are only in it for the commission it starts to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Now, although I could easily unsubscribe from these lists and usually do, there are some I still like to keep an eye on.

However, I don’t like be buried in unread emails every time I log in to my account.

Marketing Junk Mail

Recently, I decided reclaim control of my main email address.

This is how I did it.

First I created a clean slate.

This involved deleting and archiving a bunch of stuff in my inbox.  Some of you may be so far behind that it will take days just to complete this task.  For now I would just create a new folder along the lines of “need to review” and move everything to that folder.  Now your inbox will be clean and you can go through the email in that folder as time permits.

The next step is to handle mail as it arrives and make a quick decision.  This is the fun part.

Email from Mom? Read it, reply and archive.

Email box is still clean.

Email from a Marketer I enjoy following?

Read it, click on link to read latest blog post, archive.

Email box is still clean.

Email from annoying Marketer who has never provided any benefit?

Open it, unsubscribe, delete.

Email from semi-annoying Marketer that I still kind of want to keep tabs on?

Open it, read it, click on link to change contact details, change to new email address and delete.

That last step is the step I have been concentrating the most on lately.  What I did was set up another email address for these semi-annoying marketers, coupons I have signed up for, and miscellaneous newsletters.

When signing up for all this stuff I usually enter my main email address.  I do this because it is easier for me to confirm my address, since I almost always have my main email open.

Once I notice it is something that I don’t want coming to my main email, I click on the link at the bottom of the email and change my email address to the second email address I created.

Now I will no longer be bombarded by these emails in my main email account.

When I have some spare time I can log in to the other account and filter through some of the “crap” and decide what I want to do with it.

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Wealthy Affiliate University, My Early Review

by Eric Transue on March 5, 2010

Earlier this week I joined Wealthy Affiliate University.  I’ve been hearing quite a bit about it lately from some of the Internet Marketers I respect the most.

As you know there is a group of mentors and marketers I have, that I keep tabs on regularly.  I firmly believe it is not necessary to repeat mistakes others have already made.

Find people that are successful….find out what they are doing…and then apply those techniques to your situation.

Although that is a simple plan, it shocks me that so many people do not take the time to study what is working for those that are having success.

The biggest problem with finding out what the successful are doing is getting them to spill the beans.

After all, what benefit do they get from sharing with you the techniques that are working except for added competition?

Although some get pleasure out of helping others for free, they are few and far between.

Some very successful marketers benefit by creating courses or ebooks out of their successful techniques and selling it to you.

There are a couple problems with this however.

First off.  Is the info they are selling, stuff that is actually still working?  Or is it something that used to work?  But since it no longer does they are selling it to you under the false pretense that there is still money to be made using these techniques.

The other issue is price.  Many marketers have great tips that are sure to help you put money into your bank account, but they are so high priced that most beginners cannot afford them.  And if they could, they often don’t have the skill set yet to implement what is taught.

This is where Wealthy Affiliate University comes into play.

I read quite a few very helpful forums and blogs each and everyday.  I have learned so many new things that have helped me increase my business greatly over the last few years.

The problem is, I really have to dig around to find the nuggets of information that are the most helpful.

If I don’t log into one of these free forums or blogs for a week or so, I may miss a hot conversation or technique.  Bummer!

So recently I have been hearing a lot of buzz about Wealthy Affiliate University, often referred to as just WA in many forums and blogs.  As always before I join something I searched for some  reviews of Wealthy Affiliate University to make sure it wasn’t a scam.

As with most things I research, I saw many great WA reviews.  I also saw others saying that most of the stuff was for beginners and advanced internet marketers should stay away.  Something about being told to stay away always draws my attention.  Especially when I know for a fact that there are some very successful marketers that I follow that are members of WAU.

These are people that started off just like you, that have traded in their 9 to 5 day jobs for their dream life of working from home on their own schedule.

My First Impressions of Wealthy Affiliate

I had to see what was going on behind these closed doors…so earlier this week I visited the site and joined.

Wealthy Affiliate University charges $39 a month for their membership.  This is a price I am more than willing to pay if it can provide me a place to expand my knowledge and apply that to my business.

When I first logged in I was really impressed with the interface.  Think of it as Facebook meets Warrior Forum.  There was a real community vibe going on here!  As I clicked around on the different tabs I found one that displayed the TOP RANKED MEMBERS.

Wow!  Two out of the top four are successful marketers I have already been following.  And although I read their blogs regularly, one of them has never mentioned WA and if he did I missed it.

Did I just stumble on to some secret club of successful Internet Marketers?  I hope so.

I’ll go into the interface and features of the WA site in a future post so that this post doesn’t end up 10 pages long.  I’ll just say I am really impressed from what I see so far.

Wealthy Affiliate University Success Posts

As with any program, site, or course that has a forum I always do a quick check to see what is going on.  As I entered the WA forum I notice a section “Success Posts Here!”.  Bingo!  Exactly the type of posts I like to read to get a feel for what others are experiencing.

Here were some of the posts titles in that forum

  • My 2 INCREDIBLE years inside WA
  • From Startup to Profit – Blow by Blow
  • First sale dance!!
  • It Happened-Over $9K Per Month With Niche Sites
  • My First sale-Didn’t think it was possible!

Ok, looks promising.

I started digging deeper and I found a common theme.  As someone stated in the reviews I found before…many of the people writing these posts were beginning marketers.

But guess what?

They were finding success with the things they were learning at Wealthy Affiliate University.

How long have you been struggling as an affiliate without making even one sale or very few?

Many of these people were just weeks and months in and were already making sales.

As someone who struggled quite a bit myself when starting out, I found this quite inspirational.

WA Offers A Lot of Content

This WA main area has a ton of content on all types of IM techniques, including Squidoo lenses, article marketing, pay per click, etc.  It’s going to take some time to go over all the stuff that this site contains.

I’ll post more once I have some time to thoroughly explore all the great content this site has to offer.

At first glance it looks promising…I can’t believe it took me so long to find this place.

I’ve already had several members email me, to welcome me to the site and offer their assistance for anything I may need.  Now this is my type of community!  People succeeding and willing to help others succeed as well.

If you are a member of Wealthy Affiliate University…I feel I am late to the party and many of you are probably already part of this gold mine…be sure to search for me and add me as a friend.  I’d love to chat.  My username is erictransue.

If you aren’t a member and would like to check it out for yourself you can find the site by clicking here.

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Ready for Success Online? Give, Give, Give!

by Eric Transue on February 24, 2010

We’ve all heard the phrase before, “It’s better to give than to receive”.

I think for most of us, it is often heard during the Holiday season, especially during Christmas.  You usually hear it from one of your friends or family members right after you give a great gift to someone and receive a shitty one in return.

In an attempt to make you feel better after receiving a box of chocolate covered cherries in exchange for the iPod Nano you purchased, your friend looks you in the eyes and while using every facial muscle possible to avoid cracking a smile says, “It’s better to give than to receive”.

For years I was in the frame of mind that this saying was just used to make people feel better in situations like the one above.  But a couple years back that all changed.

I’m an Eagle Scout so giving is nothing new to me.  In Scouts I was heavily involved in community service.  However, the reason I was doing community service at the time was not only to help others, but also help myself.  By doing the community service I was rewarded with merit badges or advancement in rank.

It wasn’t until I started to actually give without expecting anything in return that I finally understood the true meaning “it’s better to give than to receive”.

When I say “give”, I’m not necessarily talking about physical items.  I am talking about giving information, giving your time and giving a helping hand when one is needed.

My greatest sense of satisfaction has come from the thanks and gratitude I have received when helping others.  Sometimes it’s not even a written or verbal thank you.  When my Grandma was sick, she needed help with her physical therapy.  I knew she could not do it on her own so I would go meet her and help her through it.  The way she looked at me as I helped her made me realize exactly how true the saying was.  It was definitely better to give.

You probably don’t visit my site to hear about my Grandma or chocolate covered cherries.  You want to know how this applies to Internet Marketing and online business in general.

Well I can’t give you hard figures, but I struggled for a long time just making a few dollars here and a few dollars there online.  Once I started sharing rather than always selling, that’s when things begin to change for me.  My traffic increased  and I started building real relationships with my readers.

I wanted my readers that were struggling to make money online to know…I was one of them.  I tried everything and was ready to throw in the towel.  I was scammed.  I wasted a lot of money on over hyped products and I tried to sell anything that would get me a good affiliate commission.  That was then.

Now, when I recommend something to my readers, I have done my research and used the product.  If I don’t like something about it, I’ll tell you.  It’s far more important to me to gain your trust than it is to make a quick couple bucks on something I know is not going to help you move forward.

I’ve also learned that I don’t need to be constantly trying to sell something.  I used to spend 100% of my time selling online in hope of making “big” money.  Now, I’m up front.  I write about things I’m working on and doing.  If I’m using a product that I am seeing good results with, I’ll tell you about it.  If you decide to buy it great.  If not, that’s okay too.

As long as you keep coming back for more information and it’s helping you I’m happy.  I hope you are too!

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