Strategy For Profit

An Internet Marketing Journey

Join Our Facebook Group and Share Ideas

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Welcome to our Facebook group

There are literally hundreds of ways to make a passive income online

… but getting started is the most difficult part of all

With so many choices, where or how should you get started? It’s like standing at the base of a mountain and wondering how to get to the top. Pretty daunting stuff!

We have just added a Facebook group that we’d like to invite you to join. If you have some ideas and strategies for success we’d love to have everyone share. Feel free to post your own business promotions, useful tools and software, etc. as well as reviews. We’re going to be fairly liberal about the group content at first but adult content, blatant spam and junk will be deleted immediately.

Our Twitter page is growing rapidly with now over 3000 Followers so please join us there as well. We will be posting a how to article here soon that will help you build your Twitter audience the right way. The number one rule for making an income online is numbers. The more people you have following, liking and subscribing to your email list, the more effective your campaigns will be.



A quick note about the reviews and tool links on this site: I am an affiliate for most every product I review or link to. I purchase these products and test them myself in order to create quality reviews. All my reviews are completed as honestly as possible. I make no promises to the vendor prior to writing my review as to the content of the review. Should you click a link on this site that takes you to a paid product, this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to purchase that product.

How to Quickly Make Money Selling Udemy Courses

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UdemyWhat is Udemy? For those of you who don’t know, Udemy is probably the world’s largest online learning marketplace. They boast over 6 million plus students who enroll and take online courses in a huge variety of subjects from programming, marketing, health to cooking and music. Once you enroll into a course, it’s a lifetime membership. You can make money selling Udemy courses as an affiliate, which can be a great strategy for profit with very little investment on your part.

Although you can make money by producing and promoting your own Udemy courses, it is also possible to make a great deal of money selling other people’s courses as an affiliate. If you already have a lot of connections on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. this is a huge advantage and should help you start making money very quickly. You get a 40% commission on every Udemy course that you refer to someone, if they decide to enroll.

Here are the steps you need to follow in order to get started making money selling Udemy courses:

  1. Apply and sign up as an Udemy affiliate. Get started here or at Ratuken Linkshare, via the Join Now button. Once you sign up, you will have to wait for approval. You must be over 18 years of age. Also, you will be asked to provide your website address. If you don’t have a website get a simple one setup. Once your account is approved (usually 24 to 48 hrs.), simply login and search and apply for Udemy under the Advertisers index. Udemy pays via Linkshare to your PayPal account.
  2. Find courses that you can sell as an affiliate by contacting instructors and asking them to create a “coupon code” specifically for you.
    This is so that the link you promote gets credited to you for payment. In this example, we are using this coupon code URL: https://www.udemy.com/learn-thai-cooking/?couponCode=strategyforprofit

    • Next, you need to create a link in Linkshare. Under the Links menu select “Deep Linking” option, then select the advertiser which would be Udemy. Copy/paste the URL (like the above example) and click on Create Link.
      Udemy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once that is done, you will have your link which you can them promote on your website or on social media. It looks like this:

Udemy2To make this extremely long link shorter, you can use a free service such as Bitly or Ow.ly. Once this is done, simply place the link in your social media and/or website and that’s it. Done.

So how do you find courses to sell?

Probably the first, best course of action is to contact the course instructors, as mentioned above. Many instructors have multiple courses and you may be able to promote some or all. It is to the instructor’s advantage to get you the codes you need because you are helping to sell their course, at no cost to them. Who would turn down free advertising? The other advantage is that the codes can have an expiration quantity or date, so if you’re really successful, you may need to contact the instructor to have them create a new code for you. Go to Udemy.com and look for top instructors with over 1000 students and 4 or 5 star reviews. These courses are already very popular and should be easier for you to promote and make a sale.

Another method is to find and use coupon codes on websites, Facebook Groups, Reddit, etc. One caveat is that you need to keep an eye on these codes to make sure they do not expire. If they do, you can either stop promoting them or contact the instructor and request a new code, specifically for you. Here are a few places to get you started.

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A quick note about the reviews and tool links on this site: I am an affiliate for most every product I review or link to. I purchase these products and test them myself in order to create quality reviews. All my reviews are completed as honestly as possible. I make no promises to the vendor prior to writing my review as to the content of the review. Should you click a link on this site that takes you to a paid product, this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to purchase that product.

Living the Internet Marketing Dream in Thailand?

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House in ThailandSeems like a LOT of Internet Marketers live and work in Thailand. Maybe it’s the warm, tropical weather, the absolutely wonderful and delightfully fresh food? Hard to say. There are definitely a lot of advantages to living in Thailand but some disadvantages as well. I’ve been visiting Thailand since 1999 and I own a house there. My wife is Thai and owns real estate in a number of locations around Bangkok and Chiang Rai. The house is in her name because foreigners are not allowed to own property in Thailand unless a Thai person owns the major share of the investment. Bummer.

Working in Thailand or not…

I started out working for a large, well known company near the US Embassy in Bangkok. I was in charge of managing their web campaigns. It wasn’t long before I began to feel like I was part of a sitcom. The office was filled with employees who spent most of the day browsing the web, playing on Facebook or watching videos. Not much “work” got done. When a potential client came in, everyone would scramble around to “look busy” and impress the customer. And yes, it was indeed very impressive! The Thais are masters of illusion and they could make everything look very corporate and busy within the blink of an eye. It’s a cultural thing that many of us westerners just cannot comprehend. Despite the fact that I had a pretty sweet deal, my own gorgeous office and staff, I just couldn’t take it after awhile. I love my work and there really wasn’t anything to challenge me, though I could probably write a book about the experience (and some day I might). It really was that crazy.

Office in Thailand

I tried to start my own business in Thailand, with the help of my wife, but again the cultural differences became apparent. Thai people like to have fun (sanuk) with business transactions. That usually consists of dining out at night and making the deal entertaining. When I approached one large, well know Thai company, about revamping their website (which featured happily dancing, animated gifs of Santa Claus and the Easter bunny on the home page), they just didn’t get it. For them, web marketing meant very little and a website was like the poor cousin of a business card. For the most part, just having a website…any website, was good enough for them.

Fortunately, I started networking with other western business people about working in Thailand. I met with several companies owned by both American and British professionals. Every one of them told me the same thing. Forget about trying to sell services to Thai people. Instead, all of these companies were based in Thailand, using it as a hub, to interact and do business with other countries. Also, they were saving money by hiring Thai and Filipino employees. My takeaway from this was that Thailand is a great base to conduct business from but not to do business with. If you’re going to live the Internet marketing dream, best to establish your roots in your home country. PayPal, some affiliate marketing resources and other essentials may refuse to allow you to open accounts with a foreign address or bank account. Bottom line is that you can indeed live the fantasy lifestyle of Internet marketing in Thailand, and other exotic locations, but build your foundation on your home turf. I have become quite successful using this strategy.

But what about the sandy beaches and working in flip-flops with a cool drink and a laptop?

ThailandAlthough I now own a home and primarily reside in the USA, we still own our house and other real estate in Thailand. It’s a newer, Spanish style home in Samut Prakan, a stone’s throw from the Gulf of Thailand and some delicious seafood restaurants. We try to go back and visit once a year, for at least a month. Is it because we amassed a fortune with Internet Marketing? Maybe not a fortune, but Internet marketing definitely helped. I have my wife’s real estate investment skills to thank along with money earned from a passive income and my web design business in the USA. Although we do get to visit the sandy beaches like Bang Saen (which is nearby) Kho Samet, Hua Hin and others, I try to leave the laptop in the hotel or better yet, at home.

In 15 years, I’ve never seen anyone yet working on the beach with a laptop. Why not? Because if you’re successful, you can spend your time in Thailand enjoying your money made from Internet marketing.  Also, most people know that if you have anything of value and you leave it alone for just 10 seconds, it will disappear. That’s the real Thailand!



A quick note about the reviews and tool links on this site: I am an affiliate for most every product I review or link to. I purchase these products and test them myself in order to create quality reviews. All my reviews are completed as honestly as possible. I make no promises to the vendor prior to writing my review as to the content of the review. Should you click a link on this site that takes you to a paid product, this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to purchase that product.

CPA, Solo Ads and Affiliate Marketing – Which Do I Choose?

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internet marketing

I’ve looked at some of the courses touted by the Internet Marketing “gurus” and it’s really tough to narrow down a starting point on a path to profitability. Some of the results, case studies, etc. look tantalizing, but I have to admit to getting a “red alert” in the back of my neck as I consider delving into CPA (cost per action) or Solo Ads (basically paying someone to promote your offer to their mailing list subscribers).

With CPA’s I’m a bit concerned about the spammy nature of the beast and losing the trust of my e-mail subscribers and new customers alike. Do I really want to setup a Facebook ad campaign to drive clicks to an offer to fill out a survey to win a free iPhone, etc.? These kind of promotions have been done ad nauseum and I think people are now savvy enough to pass on such things. Also, even though I am a member of MaxBounty and other CPA programs, there are restrictions on how you market these offers. A lot of them do not allow email or social media promotion so you must rely upon your website traffic. Unless you’ve got tons of visitors to your website every day, that just doesn’t look feasible.

I have also read up on solo ads but have a nagging concern about those at well. If you’re paying someone to send out your offer to their mailing list, what guarantee is there that you’re getting any value from what you’re paying for? Low or no conversions could be vaguely explained away as lack of interest in the offer, etc. It just seems to risky for me to jump into.

That leaves the third option that I am considering, which is affiliate marketing. I have had accounts with Shareasale and Commission Junction for years. Both are gathering dust and while it’s doubtful that I’ll get rich overnight, I think it’s worth the effort to utilize these programs. You basically get paid a commission when something you advertise sells. I am already contemplating niche sites, reviews and other more down to earth, white hat methods to get this in gear. I am already doing modestly ok with Google AdSense so this does seem to be a logical progression.

Let me know what you think. I’m curious to know what others have had for experiences with CPA, solo ads and affiliate marketing campaigns.



A quick note about the reviews and tool links on this site: I am an affiliate for most every product I review or link to. I purchase these products and test them myself in order to create quality reviews. All my reviews are completed as honestly as possible. I make no promises to the vendor prior to writing my review as to the content of the review. Should you click a link on this site that takes you to a paid product, this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to purchase that product.

Is Starting an Internet Marketing Business Easy?

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Make Money OnlineThere is literally a sea of information and offers out there in Internet Marketing Land that promise the “lifestyle of the rich and famous” with little to no monetary investment or work expenditure. Like anything else, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

I’ve looked through a LOT of courses and many of them really do get you excited and ready to jump in. Unfortunately, the results can often be nowhere near as profitable as the course instructor promises. I just read this recent post from Finch Sells about turning $5000 into an affiliate business. The man behind Finch Sells, tells it like it is with no fluff and a dose of reality. I always look forward to reading his posts as they tend to bring me back down to the ground, after getting excited over some of the “fluffier” guru promotions.

Take Facebook ads for real estate agencies, for example. I hate to say it but every real estate agency I have ever worked with are penny pinchers. They simply do not want to spend any more than they have to and if they do take a chance, they need to see an immediate ROI or else they are not interested. I’ve tried ads for different agencies, based on a couple courses I watched. First, the agencies will NEVER pay the suggested $1000 fee to place the ad (even $100 is like pulling teeth), despite the gamble of a great commission. You almost have to fund the Facebook ad yourself and collect the calls, passing them on to the agency who would then pay you part of the commission. They didn’t like that option too much either.

I’ve been monitoring a lot of Facebook newsfeed ads recently and reading the comments. From what I’m seeing, it does not look like Facebook ads are the gateway to traffic that some suggest. What are your thoughts and experiences?



A quick note about the reviews and tool links on this site: I am an affiliate for most every product I review or link to. I purchase these products and test them myself in order to create quality reviews. All my reviews are completed as honestly as possible. I make no promises to the vendor prior to writing my review as to the content of the review. Should you click a link on this site that takes you to a paid product, this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to purchase that product.

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