Lots of thoughts & Stragegies

Lately I'm trying to take the "next step" in my online marketing career. I am trying to come up with theories and strategies for what actually works and what doesn't. A little background on the past couple weeks: This past week I got into 2 new programs - my own free adboard and a new affiliate program from ClickBank. The Free ad board was something I wanted to do for a little while now. I think it's a good resource for list building and general promotion.

This is where my online marketing mind has been lately: We should be using traffic exchanges to build a list! Build a "funneling" system in order to gain trust & credibility. I believe in what I'm doing - I know I keep saying the same thing over and over, but it's true. I also have learned that the traffic methods i'm using have a very A.D.D. attention span - You MUST grab their attention right away and show them what's in it for them. I found Vital Viral this week and I think that is the next promotion campaign I need to undertake. If you have surfed a lot of exchanges, you have probably seen the "if your not earning $20/hr surfing..." ads, that is where these come from - It's an excellent splash page and I signed up. I was already an OBA member but I wasn't using these to their full potential. I know I talked about exchanges a few weeks ago and how we basically had to be using "short & sweet" pages to promote with. These are critical - We are all surfing exchanges looking for things that help US succeed, as individuals. I can't imagine anyone surfing exchanges for fun - So we need to cater to that need - They (AND US!) want free promotion and that 'missing ingredient' to help their online marketing careers...

Do I have that answer yet? No - sorry - I'm working hard and am putting in the time, but i'm still learning this thing. The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know :)

Here is what I have learned though - Build a LIST! We should be spending most of our time building up steady traffic. Whether that be surfing exchanges or promoting a list builder, this is an important tool that we need. I use Explosive List - It's really great so far...If you have signed up with me, I hope you haven't felt like i've been spamming you - I really try not to - But I know that in order to share a good program with others, you need to email them.

Through explosive list and my new free ad board, I've gained over 100+ opt in email addresses. I gave everyone on my List a free upgrade on my ad board - That is the least I can do really - I want them to use it and promote their programs. But with that free upgrade, I get their email address so that I can remind them that I'm still here.

So my focus has been leading away from surfing like crazy - I understand that we get a lot of hits but honestly, it's exhausting...I was surfing TS25 the other night cause it's ranked highly - I found out that it takes me 5 credits to get 1 of my sites viewed - I want to put a bunch of !!! & ???? behind this because that basically means I am getting a 5:1 surf ration - Every 5 sites I surf I get 1 viewer to my site - How does a site like this get ranked in the top of exchanges?!?! (i've been waiting long enough lol) - And it's a 15 second timer to boot - What a waste of my time...I'm still working on my top 10 exchanges but here is my "short list"

HitSafari
WebBizInsider
TrafficSplash
TrafficPods
I Love Hits
Traffic Bunnies
4x4 Hits
Max Traffic Pro
Click Ranch (i will rank this higher soon - I like this site!)
Hit2Hit

But here's the thing...Hit2Hit is ranked #1 on Traffic Hoopla - It offers 4 sites and a 3:1 surf ratio (so we surf 3 sites to get 1 hit) - UGGGG - It's easy to surf, but I feel like if I surf 2 sites, that should earn me a hit - The 3 to 1 surf ratios annoy me. And if I'm surfing 10-15 exchanges, there is no way i'm paying for upgraded memberships at all of them. Can you imagine the monthly cost there? wowsers - So I gotta get a decent return while i'm surfing.

See that my mind is all over the place - I'm just trying to figure out the BEST ways to promote and earn referrals. What I'm thinking is that it's better to really focus on 10 sites (tops) and surf there exclusively. I'm just thinking that instead of half ass promoting 20 sites, get serious about steady hits for less sites, but more hits on those sites we choose - Since I cannot pay for premium memberships at all these sites, I have to pick the best sites that give fair returns for my surfing time (which I already hate LOL)

So I will finalize my top 10 sites soon and get those up on my exchange reviews. I didn't even put Link Referral & Traffic Swarm up because they are the best - there isn't even a discussion to be had...

I am actually leading a referral contest at Explosive List - amazing...I am NOT giving away my secrets until the contest is over though - Sorry but $100 1st place prize :)

Happy with where I'm at right now - I believe I am figuring things out...The fact that I'm #1 with 40 referrals at Explosive List gives me hope. Right now I'm trying to build up my email list first - I don't even have a product for sale that is over $5 - But once I get a large email list, perhaps I will find a great program I can promote honestly (and still bring some cash in :)