Challenge: Making Money on Squidoo

[Mark Nehs]

I just decided some how some way I am going to be making $50 or more per day with Squidoo by Dec 31st. How about you?

It is now Nov 2008, and I have several Squidoo lenses for a little over a year now. Lenses with information I enjoy without much attention to how to make money for myself or my charities. I do make a little bit but not even enough for a coffee a day (even a no frills cheap brand).

This thread is reserved for those that want to get serious about Squidoo and want to make cold hard cash for themselves or their charity.

The money earned will be from affiliate sales, product sales, lens income, and whatever else we can come up with.

How can we help each other? Let us know what is working for you as you get sales, different ideas, post links of ways others are making money with Squidoo, and being a supportive helpful team member.

If you want to join (posting your goal on the Internet for all to see -- kinda scary) please register in this thread with how much you will be making (for yourself and/or charities) by Dec 31st.

It is now Dec 31st, 2008 and I am so happy and grateful to be making $50 or more per day with Squidoo sharing products, services, and information.

Side Note to Squidoo Marketing Community: I posted this same challenge over at Beginners Marketing Class if you want to accept and help others there as well.

[MiMi]

Sounds like a winner to me, Mark. Off to check out your site.

[Mark Nehs]

Looking back over the last 45 days, I have some thoughts.

Due to main job work overload, I have had to move my goal to Jan 31st. Because I have not put anytime into Squidoo it has helped me to reflect a bit.

Few things:

I would say the directory listings have boosted all of my lenses higher than they would have been which has helped lensrank.

The firefox extension to super easily post links in BB code and HTML has saved me a TON of time. Sorry but I can't remember which one I am using but once I figure it out I will post it here.

Lensmasters are a great group of people that want to see each other succeed.

Internet lingo is helpful to know and I am still pretty unclear which makes understanding things like PepperJam a challenge for me.

I am going to make a post of what is working and not working for me and would love some input from everyone else. I just added a duel so you can share.

[John Dilbeck]

Good morning, Mark.

I agree: lensmasters are a great group of people and I'm proud to have met so many. It's refreshing to find people who want to help us succeed instead of trying to dissuade us or tear us down.

Thanks for all you're doing to work with others to increase their income.

Act on your dream!

JD

[Mark Nehs]

To Zazzle or not to Zazzle

I have not done anything with this module. Anyone using Zazzle with some success? What kinds of products are selling on what kinds of lenses?

[Joan]

Mark, I did see your note on twitter. I can't make a lens about $$ right now, cause I am makig so little. and I really really plan to do the potpiegirl plan in january........but...........will use a different identity. 101 lenses as me is enough without adding stuff and things to that mix.........lol......at least i think.....

[MiMi]

Hey Mark, John, Joan and others :)

Haven't reached the goal, but what I have gained from it is that there are so many choices out there for what one can do to reach the goal. Confusing is what it is. So many people say they have The Way. Well, so far, I don't buy it. Tempted, but still leery. However, I do believe there are some things that will be required in order to meet this goal at some point: A specific plan fortified by a powerful work ethic, perseverance, time, and a pin-point focus.

I don't count this month as having made any headway, because December is a shopping month. Monies made this month were because of that and not because of any new thing that I did. My plan is to read some of the lenses that purport to give out free information on affiliate marketing -- as well as to give more study to the lenses of the ma$ter lensmasters.

That's where I am at this point... All thoughts welcome. :)

[John Dilbeck]

Good afternoon, MiMi.

I think you pointed out a way to do well with affiliate marketing:

A specific plan fortified by a powerful work ethic, perseverance, time, and a pin-point focus.

I have done a lot of studying of affiliate marketing and I think there are many versions of "The Way."

However, what is one person's "The Way" would be intolerable for someone else. What works for one person will not work for another.

That's one of the problems I've seen from every "system" that people create and promote. In most cases, I've found one or more things that I would never promote and that makes that particular system unworkable for me.

Currently, I have signed up for 1,288 sites, and many of those are affiliate programs. I wanted to see how they worked from the inside. Of all of those - many of which I never implemented and promoted - I earn 90% of my income from just about a dozen companies. This year, I'll be dropping that bottom 10% and concentrating more on the top 90%.

Over time, I'm finding what works for me and I'm focusing better on just those few programs.

I'm not going to mention those companies because they may not work for you or someone else reading this. It's probably clear from my own blogs and sites what I promote, but I won't go into it here and hijack the thread.

One of the main problems with affiliate marketing is that there are so many choices with hundreds more coming online every month. As someone else put it, it's easy to get distracted by the new shiny red balls.

I think trying new things and seeing how they work for you is a good thing. Otherwise you stagnate and may not find the perfect thing for you to promote.

But, after trying something for awhile, it's a good idea to drop what you don't like or what doesn't produce results.

I'm all for perseverance, but there comes a time to dump what isn't working and move on.

I've been an affiliate for Amazon.com for years and I used to make several hundred dollars every quarter. The last quarter of 2008, I made less than $20, and it just isn't worth my time to promote it, any more.

Other people are earning thousands of dollars every month from Amazon.com, so it's just another example of something working for some and not for others.

I tend to promote books, because I'm a reader. I suspect the real moneymakers on Amazon now are electronics, games, cameras, etc., and I have no interest in promoting them.

In addition to joining lots of affiliate programs, I've bought lots of books, ebooks, and reports. So far, none of the have shown me "The Way," but I'm picking up bits and pieces from them and working on developing "My Way."

Every year, my commissions have increased, and this year I'll be working full-time on this for the first time since I discovered affiliate marketing. I'm expecting to increase my revenue several-fold, but I can't tell someone else how to do what I do. I'm not trying to hide anything, it's just that each of us has a different personality, different interests, things we love, things we hate, and things we just won't do.

I am following Mark's experiment and I'm interested in what others are doing as part of it.

Personally, I don't think Squidoo is the best way to maximize affiliate commissions, but it is an important way to bring more people into your sphere of influence, and it's been a great way to meet very interesting and helpful people. It's a part of my marketing mix, but not my main focus.

For some, however, Squidoo works extremely well.

So, even though others have gone ahead of us and blazed the affiliate marketing trail, it's up to each of us to "take the road less traveled" and find our own path to profits.

At least, I think it is.

;)

Act on your dream!

JD

[Joan]

john and mimi, yall have hit it. I have been studying this sttuff for 18 months now and just starting to bring in little dribbles of cash - i am a slow learner obviously. but the truth is that no one has it all .........and like with anything else guru related, i take what i want and throw the rest away......and yes, creating my own "system"........

[MiMi]

Thank you two for the input! I can so agree that The Way is different with each individual. ...Slowly, but surely, I do feel that a system is coming to me. It's still not specific or pin-point focused, but it all boils down to working with my passion... I am giving it lots of thought and STILL trying to get a system going that incorporates my thought about work ethic, focus and such -- it feels backwards. LOL Very stoked, though! Thanks to Mark for bringing about this challenge to help us be and stay focused on it. :)

Happy New Year, y'all!

[Mark Nehs]

Several nuggets of wisdom in this post and Mimi's post. The insight from these posts alone has made this challenge worth pursuing.

I want to ditto a couple of points from these posts.

1. I have really only a few affiliate programs that I even receive a check on. Thus, I have shifted the focus to the winners for me.

2. Aimlessly putting time working on Squidoo or anything is like driving without a steering wheel -- we all need a plan and we need to stick to it!!

John, I do think it would be worthwhile to share what is working for you. While it is true that I will still do it my way and different things will work better for different niches it would still be helpful to know if for example article marketing is working for you and blogging is a waste of your time.

Posting comments and sharing about books/DVDs/audios that I believe in has worked for me. I would still say I am better at generating traffic than the average internet marketer but my conversion ratio is worse.

[John Dilbeck]

Good morning.

Mark, I'm happy to share what's working for me.

I've done a lot of things and the ones that work best are building my own (static) websites and blogging.

I have not tried article marketing, but I did own an article directory for over a year so that I could learn the difference between what I thought were good articles. Article marketing is high on my to-do list this year.

However, I don't think articles are really good ways to sell. I think they work better as traffic generators that lead people back to a specific web page or blog post.

In many cases, an effective article stands alone and offers good information, but the author's bio offers a link to his/her site that offers more information on that particular topic. It's the art of telling an incomplete story. I've been trying to learn that art and I'm going to give it a real try this year.

I look at Squidoo more as a traffic generator and a way to meet new people more than as an income generator. My goal with most lenses is to entice visitors to visit my other sites and blogs, which is where I concentrate on selling.

The same thing works with traffic exchanges. I use them to entice visitors to visit my other sites. Some ads I show are for direct sign-ups, but others are to get people to join a list and that will give me a way to offer multiple exposures of my message.

Email marketing is going to be a big part of what I'll be doing this year. I'll be working to build a mailing list for every major service and product I promote, with the goal of getting people to join the list, rather than sending them to an affiliate link directly.

I can push a message out to people via email and pull them back to the sales page on a site I control.

I'm in the process of writing a couple of books that I'll be giving away later this year. One will be for promoting local brick-and-mortar businesses on the Internet and the other will be related to affiliate marketing.

That's all I can think of right now. One of the companies I promote is going to have a major change announced in about 16 minutes, so I'm going to turn my attention to that. I'll be back, later.

Act on your dream!

JD

[Joan]

I did sign up today as affiliate for Potpiegirl's book - One Week Marketing. Mostly because I want a copy and cannot spend the $50 - so figure if i sell two, i can get one............I am a big fan of hers, for sure! so working some on my squidoo-type lenses and adding that banner............
still selling some of the Squidoo Cash Machine books - and I really did like that one and am still studying it......soooooo
I am always shocked to find out i have sold something on clickbank.......but sometimes i really do........and we did get a nice check of over $100 right before Christmas. good timing............

back to work