I’m a programmer. It’s what I do.

I sit down at my desk, I go through support tickets and answer
emails, and then fill up the rest of my day writing code.

I’m the working class of the internet marketing world. I make
reasonable money, but it’s takes its own toll of blood, sweat,
and tears. Oh, and tired eyes, sore back, and a weird clicking in
my wrist. And sometimes I talk to myself. And occasionally I even
answer back.

But I’m not complaining - I get to spend more time with my family
and I get to see my little boy grow up first hand.

But trust me, I’m not some kind of martyr. I’m always looking for
ways to make my life easier. My goal is to make more money with
less work.

And recently, up has popped a number of issues - affiliate
marketing, and video production. Both linked, and both of which
I’ve resisted over the years. I’ll tell you why shortly.

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AFFILIATE MARKETING (Ka-Ching!)
=================================================

For those of you not familiar with the term, it’s basically the
internet’s answer to sales commission. You promote a product, and
if you make a sale, you get a cut of the commission.

The brilliant thing about internet affiliate programs is the cut
of the commission is insanely high.

Offline, a sales person can often get around 5% commission.
Online, for digital products, it’s usually around 50%, give or
take 20 percent.

So a huge amount of money for not much work.

And I know it works. How? Because a huge chunk of my DLGuard
sales are generated from affiliates.

They promote my product, and I spend more time working in the
business.

It’s a sweeter deal for them than it is for me. That’s why I’ve
finally started taking affiliate marketing more seriously.

I don’t do a great lot, because I’m still new at it (like I said,
I’m a programmer, not an affiliate marketing genius), but I do
get some consistent cheques from a couple of affiliate programs.

It’s certainly not enough money to live off, but it’s essentially
free money. And free money is good money.

And this bring me to the next part:

=================================================
VIDEO PROMOTIONS (groan)
=================================================

I say Groan, simply because it’s not something I find terribly
interesting.

Unfortunately for me, it’s something that seems to be taking hold,
as much as I’m willing it not to.

I don’t like watching video promotions. I’d much prefer a text
based sales page. But unfortunately, it seems I’m a dying breed.

Sometimes I feel like a grumpy old man (I’m 31 this year, so I’m
getting on in years) who is holding onto his wireless radio,
insisting TV is just a fad, and it’ll never take hold.

And in the background is playing that song “Video killed the
radio star…”

I read a newsletter by Lee Thompson a couple of weeks ago where
he showed insane amount of earnings that he attributes to video
sales pages.

Interesting, but I’m a programmer, I don’t have time to learn new
things. Don’t try and teach this 31 year old dog new tricks,
thank you very much.

And then up pops Kevin Riley.

Now I have a lot of respect for Kevin, and I have a sneaking
suspicion he does far less work than I do.

He may hassle me about laying around on a spotty sofa all day
(his words, not mine), but he seems to be on holidays ever second
week. Hot springs here, hot springs there.

He just released a new eBook series on creating videos to promote
affiliate campaigns:

http://www.dlguard.com/videomastertactics.php

If you’re interested in promoting affiliate programs, and also
creating videos to do so (which seems to be the growing trend,
curse it all), I’d recommend checking it out.

I haven’t read it all, just yet, but it seems to be more aimed at
the beginner (which when it comes to affiliate marketing and
video creation, I am), and possibly up to intermediate.

It discusses everything from finding a good product and keywords
to promote, right through to creating the actual videos.

It’s only $27, but if you’re a bit strapped for cash, then I’d
still recommend doing your own research into affiliate programs
and video marketing.

As much as I hate to admit it, video marketing is taking off, and
it is becoming more and more prevalent.

Even books are using video marketing these days. There’s
companies around that make short film clips for novels, kind of
like the shorts for films.

Will I be using my newly found video knowledge for promoting
affiliate programs? Yes, but I’m also interesting in creating
video tutorials for my software as well.

But if I strike it rich in affiliate marketing via video, I’ll be
sure to let you know.

If anyone has had experience in this area, I’d love to hear how
you’ve gone! Success and disaster stories are both welcome.

And as usual, I’ve gone WAY over what I expected. Thanks for
hanging in there.

Until next time,

Sam Stephens
The programming guy
DLGuard
GuardHQ

PS. You can follow me on Twitter, if you’re that way inclined:
http://www.twitter.com/samstephens

And if you’re interested in Kevin’s product:
http://www.dlguard.com/videomastertactics.php

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 at 2:58 pm and is filed under GHQ Newsletter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.