The Magic of the Autoresponder and the Long Tail (Part III)

In The Magic of the Autoresponder and the Long Tail (Part II), I promised to get into exactly why the MLM I chose was wrong, why I quit, and what the long tail is. I also promised to talk about how to use an autoresponder series like I did, and what elements you need for it to be successful.

I had mentioned in my earlier post that I made several other online marketing mistakes during the building of my 3,000 member downline. One of the biggest of which was that I chose the wrong MLM. So many people are confused over what MLM is, and is not, that it's no wonder that people really do not understand how to choose one.

To clarify a bit, I will say that if you have a great online marketing strategy, you could probably be successful with almost any MLM. I'm not talking about the MLM's marketing strategy, btw, I'm talking about yours. Their strategy is simple... quickly get as many people enrolled and using product as possible for as long as possible, rinse/repeat.

Your marketing strategy, however, needs to be a little more complicated than that. You need more finesse than that, and you need more individuality than that. How else will you distinguish yourself amid the thousands of marketers, all showing the same presentations, the same brochures, the same compensation plan, and the same products via the same web sites?

Read the above paragraph again and you will learn in an instant what it took me 10 months and $10,000 to learn... you can't win by following the herd.

One of the things I figured out, after looking at one of my checks, was that the people that I recruited were not at all following my lead and being as productive as I was. I was helping them to recruit using my own system, and at one point, I refused to personally recruit any more people (this is seen as a mistake by some, but there are shades of grey here that are outside of this discussion). The key point here is that while duplication with my fully automated system was completely within the realm of possibility, people just weren't doing it.

The other thing I figured out was that the MLM that I chose had several major flaws. One, if the people that I had recruited had duplicated what I had done, I would have been earning LESS money, not more! This is even with a much larger downline volume than what I currently had. Ooooops... lousy compensation plan.

The other thing I realized was that in order to get even close to my level of success, each of the 17 people I had personally sponsored would have to recruit at least 10 each. Each of those 10, in turn, would then have to recruit 10, and so on.

Possible? Yes, using my autoresponder series system and the Internet, but... you remember I said that people weren't doing it, and if they did, by the time you get a few levels deep, you're talking over 1 million distributors. Very few MLM companies will pull those kind of numbers, and if they do, they have certain elements that this company did not have.

Now here is perhaps the most important part related to that. All told, at my level of participation, I was spending about $100 per month on product and associated marketing costs (not my marketing costs by choice, but costs I was required to incur by the MLM). With a 3,000 member downline, I was netting only about $10 to $20 per month profit, and that was never a sure thing because I would earn less if the people I recruited did better than expected!

The only way I was going to make any real money with this company, was to stop helping my people, and recruit as many people as I could as fast as I could and let the chips fall. I refused to do it, and so I quit.

There were other factors too... the company didn't have unique products which produced measurable, visible results, their prices were too high (IMO), and they just didn't have the spunk that I was looking for. There's more, but that's the core of it. There are far better MLM's out there, with better pay plans, better products, and a better overall situation.

For another, I realized, long before I had even heard of the "long tail of marketing" that I needed a long tail approach. I had proven to myself that developing something unique of value was a key success element, instead of being one fo the crowd. But I also knew I needed something that wasn't always trying to catch up to itself, something repeatable, lasting, and, as it turns out "long tail."

In subsequent posts, I'll talk about the long tail approach a bit, and how to use an autoresponder series to enhance any online marketing effort.

The Magic of the Autoresponder and the Long Tail (Part II)

In my post, The Magic of the Autoresponder and the Long Tail (Part I), I described how I had spent enormous amounts of money, and failed miserably. I also mentioned how I had a bit of a wake up call, and turned things around.

The results of my new way of doing business on the Internet were nothing short of amazing. The largest downline in any online MLM I had built up to that point was about 10 people or so. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was totally insignificant... and frustrating!

With my new system in place, using my own autoresponder series, a number of free services, and free viral advertising, I was able to recruit 17 paying members into an online MLM in about 3 weeks! That was great! I mean, I was jumping up and down over it!

Mind you, these people were paying at least US$60 per month for product. In the past, getting someone to fork over $5 was next to impossible. Well, get this... over the next few months, those 17 people turned into a paying downline of over 3,000!

Now hear this... all of that happened without my actually talking to anyone directly. When I say that, I mean no phone calls, no direct emails, no chat sessions, no training sessions, nothing! It was all on autopilot. I was amazed.

At the same time, I was able to build secondary downlines in viral ad programs and other MLM feeder programs, some with over 250 people in them. This was all using the same autoresponder series that I had written myself. Again, I was amazed.

Had the main MLM I had chosen had worldwide operation (online marketing mistake number 2,342), it would have been even better. I had people in other countries writing to me asking if I had any alternative programs that they could join... alas, I never planned for that!

I made several other online marketing mistakes during this time, which ultimately led to the demise of my downline, and I quit the MLM. More accurately, I bailed out, and let my downline roll up. Why? Well, for one, I chose the wrong MLM. For another, I realized, long before I had even heard of the "long tail of marketing" that I needed a long tail approach.

In The Magic of the Autoresponder and the Long Tail (Part III) and beyond, I'll get into exactly why the MLM I chose was wrong, why I quit, and what the long tail is. I'll also get into how to use an autoresponder series like I did, and what elements you need for it to be successful.

The Magic of the Autoresponder and the Long Tail (Part I)

In 2003, I was trying just about every online marketing program there was. I tried numerous autoresponder systems, online MLM programs, web site builders and marketing systems, viral ads, you name it.

Towards the end of the year I had just about exhausted myself working 30+ hours per week at it on top of my regular job. I had also exhausted my finances after spending well over US$10,000 on all of these programs. I think I had made less than $100 by then.

You hear this a lot in the online world. All that time and money, and nothing to show for it, right?

I belonged to so many mailing lists that I couldn't keep up with the newsletters. It seemed that everyone was making money on the Internet within months, except me. Each "guru" had their own success formula, which they would either sell you, or let you in on if you joined their latest "program." I had just about had enough, but I knew that there was gold in "them thar web sites."

Well, following the advice of Joe Schroeder, Will Haven, and a few others, I took a second, third, and fourth look at what I was doing. I found that what I was doing was actually not at all what the gurus were doing. I was simply dancing to their tune, while they were pulling in profits. Profits that, in many cases, were being made by people like me dancing around and writing checks.

My new formula for success, and my mantra became... "Do what the guru does, not what the guru says."

After seeing what the gurus were actually doing, I changed my methods. The canned web sites and marketing materials were out. I stopped spending money on the latest thing that would make us all rich. I focused on a few programs that worked together to first, build a mailing list, and second, build a downline in an online MLM I had chosen.

You see, the guy who was building a downline of hundreds within weeks was doing it because he either a) had an inside track with the company, b) had a mailing list ready to roll things out to, or c) was building a mailing list faster than you or I could hope to. Well, I didn't have a or b, so I opted for c... and it worked.

I wrote my own autoresponder series, and I modeled it after what the gurus had done. I put my own personality into it and I made it playful and interesting. I wrote my own capture page, and I didn't oversell. I overdelivered on information, freebies, and provided an insight into what was going on within the process. Information that the gurus had left out, and I learned the hard way.

The result? Nothing less than amazing. In The Magic of the Autoresponder and the Long Tail (Part II), I'll describe how my success turned around, and how I learned about the long tail of marketing, and lasting online success.

A case study on the traffic-building power of article writing. | Jonathan Leger

A case study on the traffic-building power of article writing. Jonathan Leger

Article writing or "article marketing" as it has been called can be a great tool. In fact, there's one Internet Marketer using it as his primary means of generating traffic quickly. Rumor has it that he earns 5 figures per month by creating 5 page mini-sites and then writing articles to promote them.

Now, you can say the day of the mini-site is dead, and perhaps the long slow burn approach is the best way, but... if someone can use articles to make 5 page mini-sites generate huge adsense income fast, then how much better will that work for my 130 + page sites? I'm hoping to find out.

In the meantime, we all might want to follow along with how Mr. Leger is coming with his article/traffic test. It will be interesting to see. One thing we should note, is that although he is not giving the url out to his dog training site in his blog, it is easy enough for people to research it by finding his articles. This *may* account for some of his traffic, so the numbers may indeed be a little off. Let's see how it goes.

I do see an increase in traffic and an increase in adsense income this time of year on my sites. I'm going to sprinkle the Net with some articles over the next few months and let's see how that goes as well.