Another Off-Beat Way to Immediately Start Making Money Online

They'll NEVER Tell You
How Hard Making Money Online
REALLY is!

About a week ago I told you how I first started making money online using eBay.  If you didn’t get a chance to read it just click on the link and take a look.  Reading how people do things sometimes is very inspirational.

It can also be very motivational.

You’ll probably say, “Heck, if Ellis made money doing that, why can’t I?”

It’s true, if I did it, so can you.  Just don’t ever say that I told you it was easy.  (I’ll leave that up to guys like Frank Kern, or Yanik Silver.)  I’ll never tell you Internet marketing is easy, because that hasn't been my experience.

Using eBay and Craigslist to Make Immediate Money Online

Just when you thought you’ve probably heard every angle in Internet Marketing, someone comes up with another angle that you’ve never heard before.  This on involves eBay, but you can replace that site with any other auction site on the Internet if you so desire.

It is not a complex idea, but one worth trying because it is DIRT CHEAP!  Ha-ha!  Here I go again with a wild and weird way to make money online without buying expensive Internet guru courses or even building a blog or a Website. 

I mean we’re talking CHEAP here!

So, if you don’t have access to an eBay account you might want to get one to try this out. 

Very simply you’re going to:

1.  Find HOT items that are trending or selling on eBay.

2.  Locate and buy the same or similar items that are selling on Craigslist

3.  Negotiate and purchase the items as cheap as you can from the folks selling on Craigslist

4.  After buying the items from the Craigslist sellers, take the item and resell it on eBay for a higher price.

5. Rinse and repeat!

Possible Problems from Perky Prospects Prompts Precautions

Without too much wide-eyed optimism, I think it is always prudent to think things through before executing an idea, no matter how good it sounds.  Funny thing how all of this sounds so simple when you’re told to try it for yourself.   If you've ever been involved in any kind of business, you know that it’s NEVER simple.

Precaution 1

For one thing, anything that usually involves Craigslist (CL) usually means that you’re running the risk of being spammed to death.  So if you’re doing any business at all on CL, take precautions!  Use a throw away email account or some way to ward off spammers. 

Also, don’t give out your phone number too quickly, either.  Communicate with a seller for a while to determine if they are somewhat normal.

Precaution 2

When you decide to look up items to see if they are hot on eBay, you need to make sure that the items that you are going to try to target are REALLY viable.  You can easily go on eBay and see certain items that are selling well and get excited. 

However, if you don’t know a lot about a particular subject, then you can easily get fleeced on this deal.

Example:  You look at hot items on eBay and discover fantasy based comic books are selling like hot cakes for a lot of money.  So you go on CL and buy a crap-load of comics.  However, after you buy all those comics and put them on eBay, nobody buys them.  Not one single bid! 

Let us step back for a minute and examine what went wrong.

 The fantasy based comics you originally viewed that were selling like hotcakes were mint condition, Conan the Barbarian comics from circa 1970 by Barry Windsor Smith.  No wonder they were selling like hotcakes on eBay!  These were elite, mint condition comics that are legend in the industry!

So, if you don’t have knowledge about a particular industry, you run the risk of doing something really stupid.  Learn a little about the items you are considering buying and selling before going into this venture.

Precaution 3

When you go to buy the items you are pursuing on CL, you should know how to negotiate the price down.  There are loads of books and now great videos on how to negotiate.  This is a great skill for every negotiator in any type of business to know.

So, before you start haggling prices, try to learn a bit about negotiating before you get started, it will be a HUGE help. 

Here is an excellent video on negotiating:

Precaution 4

Before you just toss your items on eBay, learn how to describe your products.  This is where knowing how to write a little advertising copy would really come in handy.   

First of all, having a real eyeball grabbing headline in your description is very important.  You want to generate interest while creating some curiosity at the same time.  You also want to mention the main benefit of your product or service in the headline as well. 

Make sure that you describe the item as best you can, pointing on features (color, size, functions) and really expand on the benefits. (What the product will do for the prospect thinking about buying the product.)If you take these precautions at the onset, this idea will probably work OK. 

Precaution 5

Consider the costs of shipping on the front and back end.  You’ll need to make sure that whatever you’re buying on CL that you are considering the costs of shipping.  This is crucial in this type of business!  The same thing with eBay.  You will need to make sure that you’re including the shipping prices.

However, having said that, don’t think for a second that this will be smooth sailing and you’ll be raking in loads of cash, enough to live off of. 

I highly doubt that.  In my humble opinion, you can easily and quickly make your first money online doing this and you will get some valuable experience doing this.

Don’t forget, you’ll be spending quite a bit of time doing this, so you have to consider the time you’ll be spending doing the following tasks:

• Looking on CL for items to buy and researching what’s hot on eBay to sell
• Calling people up or emailing them about stuff they’re selling
• Spending time negotiating and haggling prices
• Boxing up, and taking items sold on eBay to the Post Office
• Taking pictures of the items and posting them online
• Writing up the descriptions

There may be other things you’ll have to do, but basically that’s most of it.  So, you can see, that all that glitters is not gold and there is work to be done. 

Hey, at least I didn’t sugar-coat it for ya!

A New Spin I Thought Up Based on This Scheme

Let’s bump this idea up a notch!  Here’s an idea I just thought of that I haven’t tested yet, but one of you may want to try.  Instead of searching all over Craigslist for items that you can resell, why not take out a cheap ad in Craigslist asking for a product that you know id red-hot on eBay?

That way, people will be trying to sell YOU the item that you’ll want to sell on there.  And think about this: If they do call you wanting to sell the item and it is more than you’d want to pay, try negotiating the price down. 

If you can get the price down low enough, chances are you’ll sell the item and still make a profit!

Just an idea.  Like I say, it is untested, but I’m very tempted to try so…

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

(859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

The Web Savvy Smart Forum Way to Market Your Business

As you've seen in past posts on this blog, I've been writing about all of the ways you could use to get free traffic.  The reason I’m doing this is because I’m a person that hates debt with a passion.  If I can figure out a way to do something without spending a wad of money, I’ll do it.

Now, this is not to say that you should never spend money on your business.  Later on down the road, when you are making good money, the traffic is flowing to your website, and sales are converting, you’ll start to value your time more than doing menial tasks.

Eventually, you’ll want to outsource certain aspects of your business because it will be more valuable for you to do other more important things, like product creation or managing people that are doing tasks for you.

If you decide to hire someone…

Don’t try to be too cheap! If you start hiring other people to do certain tasks for you, make sure they can do good work, and that they are competent.  That means you’ll be paying more.  In my opinion, there’s nothing worse than hiring someone to write your blog articles for you and barely have command of the English language.  Unless you want a really lousy reputation, always do your best, or hire someone that can do it for you correctly.

Using the FREE Smart Forum Method of Generating Traffic

A few posts back, I briefly touched on one of the ways you could use forums to get free traffic to your Website.  This time, I’m going to show you a slightly different strategy of using forums that you can use to get people to go to your

site.   

This Web savvy strategy is different than other methods of generating traffic, because it requires you to do something that usually goes against the grain of Internet marketing. You are not going to mention your website using this method.

THAT’S RIGHT, YOU ARE NOT GOING TO USE A WEB ADDRESS OR SAY ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR WEBSITE OR PRODUCT USING THIS METHOD.

(Well, at least not for a while, anyway.)

  The Smart Forum / Web Savvy Method Step by Step

1.        Locate forums that are related to your niche or business.  Pretty simple, eh?  To find these forums using Google, simply type in your niche key word, or keywords plus the word “forum”.   For example, if your passion is gerbils, then type in “gerbil forum”.  If you passion for gerbils is in racing them, then type in “gerbil racing forum”.  It’s just that simple! You will want to register with every gerbil racing forum you can find.

2.       Go undercover.  Once you join these forums, go on them and make well written, helpful posts to people that are asking questions.  Your goal at this point is to become a familiar part of that forum landscape that people will eventually recognize. If you do this enough, people will start looking to you as a “go-to guy”.  Someone that other forum members can look to for advice. Notice:  Make sure that you are working within your niche and that you know or have researched a good answer when responding to thread questions on a forum.  If you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about you’ll stick out as a phony.

3.       Once you have made about 20 posts or more, you can add your tag line and web address to at the end of posts on forum you've been posting at. (Usually forums want you to earn the privilege of posting your website address and tag line to their sites by writing a bunch of posts first.)  

      

      Your tag line (AKA signature line) is a brief catchphrase or slogan that you place right after your name on a post, correspondence or other communication.  If you look at my blog posts you’ll see my catchphrase right after my name.  Try to make yours interesting so that people wil want to

4.       Rinse and repeat.  If you write excellent responses that are detailed and well written, you will gain the attention of people that will eventually see you as an authority.  Once that ground work has been laid people will start to follow you to your site, sign up for your irresistible free offer and eventually buy from you.

Note: Make sure before you begin this strategy that you check to see if the forum you are posting at will allow you to eventually place your web address on your posts.  If the forum does not allow that, you will be wasting your time.

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

How to Write a Blog Post to Increase Online Traffic

This is one method of traffic generation that requires you to do some homework before you actually begin to implement it.

The “Follow The Leader” Blog Posting Strategy

With this technique you’ll need to find out what posts are generating a lot of traffic that is relevant to your subject matter.  You’ll need to go to a site like DIGG and find really popular posts that people have been making in your subject area.

Here are a few of the sites that are very similar to DIGG that you can use for this strategy:

Reddit.com

Slashdot

Newsvine

Boing Boing

When you start doing your research, you need to look for a post that is:

• Relevant to your niche
• Is wildly popular
• You can somehow develop and write more than one post about
• Has been posted recently

Keeping an Eye on Keywords and SEO

Once you find a post like this, you need to read it, dissect it and check out the keywords in the post.  When you look at the keywords, you need to pay attention to what kind they were using, how many times, if they were used in header tags in the HTML, and what size fonts they appeared in.

An easy way to dissect a post like this is to highlight all of the text in the post, drop it into a word processor and then use the “Find” function on the word processor when you see a word that looks like it is a keyword.  Usually a keyword or keyword phrase will appear multiple times on a page in various places. 

NOTE:  You can also search for the number of times that a keyword was searched for using your Internet browser’s “Find” function. On Google Chrome you can locate the “Find” function.   I personally like dissecting posts by using my Microsoft Word processor, but if you want to use your browser, that’s fine.   

However, the best way to dissect a post for SEO purposes is to right click on a webpage and then look at the source code using the Find function.  I recently looked at a top ranked article on how to write a blog post and the keyword phrase was only on the webpage two times.  However, when I looked at the source code, the term was in the HTML code eleven times!

Writing the Post to Increase the Traffic

Once you know what keywords to use and the type of article that draws attention, you can now begin to write the post.  Make sure that you are not plagiarizing any of the material you’ll be writing and keep a list of the keywords next to you as you write.

A variation on this method would be to just key in the keyword phrase and find out which posts come up the closest to the first page of the search engine results.  Then take that webpage and dissect it as well.

To Your Success!

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

"When it comes to high response copy, I've got your back!"

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

Portfolio Site: http://markelliscopyportfolio.blogspot.com/

Blogging Secrets Of a Millionaire Affiliate Marketer Part 2

Millionaire Affiliate Marketing Trick That’ll Put Your Product On Top! Part 2

If you weren't here for my last post, I told everyone on board here that this was a blueprint on how to generate income by becoming an affiliate marketer.  

This strategy was revealed to me and a few others by an established millionaire who’ll probably rip my fingernails out for telling you. But, I don’t care because he probably got it from someone else that told someone else, that told…

You get the picture.

Anyway, If you missed the last exciting installment, you will need to read how to get started with affiliate tools.

How To Do Research For Your Topics

There are four main tools that are valuable for figuring out what to write about.  From what I heard, many of the popular talk show hosts use this method for scheduling their content.

My particular favorite for this trick is Amazon.com.  If you want to find out what people are really interested in, just check out which books they purchased.  I mean, heck, they PAID for this info, so they must really be interested in it. 

Not only that, but if you look at the reviews on Amazon’s site you’ll see that not only did people buy the stinkin’ book, they took the time to write comments.   If there are a lot of comments, then you know it’s probably a hot topic.  

Amazon's comments sections under their product descriptions are great for determining topics and niches to write about 

The Amazing Amazon Topic Procedure

This is a very easy method to find topics to write about;  I'll put it in a step by step manner to make it easy.

         Step 1 go to www.Amazon.com to get started

Step 2 Once you are on the Amazon main page, you can start to research your topics by clicking on the drop -down menu where it says "All" next to the search screen.  Click on "GO" while you have a blank search field.

         Step 3  Click on "Books".  After you do that, the screen should refresh and you will see a new horizontal list right under the search field just above a big semi-orange "Books".  Click on "Best Sellers".

Here is the link: 
Amazon Book Page

Follow the first three steps above to get to the book categories.

Step 4  You will now notice that there is a menu on the left hand side that says "Books".  You can now start to drill down into more specific subjects.  For example, under "Books" you can click on "Business & Money".  Once you click on that another menu will open up that has more categories in that subject area.  

Step 5 Now, you can get even more specific!  For example you can now click on Marketing & Sales, and that will open up a whole new batch of categories within that category.  

Here is what an Amazon page should look like after you have drilled down into a category.  Let's click on Marketing & Sales.  You'll notice right off the bat that you can see more specific categories on Marketing & Sales.   Also take a look at the top selling books in this category. 

You can keep drilling down by clicking on more specific topics when the next menu opens. Also note the number of comments!

Step 6  Once you have drilled down enough, you can now begin to look at the books and subjects themselves.  Take a look at the book Go Pro 7 Steps to Becoming a Network Marketing Professional ,by Eric Worre.    There are a whopping 2019 comments as of this writing.  (Please note the little red arrow on the right.)

Now, in the land of marketing books on Amazon, that's pretty impressive.  To find out if they are all favorable comments or not, just click on the number next to the book and you can read what people like or dislike about it.

The Table Of Contents - A Most Valuable Resource! 

By clicking on most books on Amazon, (especially the popular books) you can see their table of contents with the "Look Inside" feature.  The table of contents will give you a great outline of what you can write about for almost a 2 month period.  

NOTICE!  I am not saying to copy other people's work.  You are just going to get ideas on what to write about.  Hopefully, you'll use several books and mix and match topic ideas.  Also, I am not into network marketing or multilevel whatever, I am an advertising copy writer. 

I just happened to pick this book because it had a high count of comments.  Unfortunately, you will have to look at other books in your topic area because this particular sampling by Amazon didn't have the table of contents for this book.  

However, there are loads of other books that you can not only look at the table of contents, but also read some of the chapters.  Check out this screen capture.

If you click Look Inside on Amazon, you can actually see a "Table of Contents" link on  the right.

  In my next installment, I'll show you how to use this technique to fill in your calendar and get ready for the next exciting step... Writing your first blog post!

Mark Ellis

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

"When it comes to high response copy, I've got your back!"

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

Portfolio Site: http://markelliscopyportfolio.blogspot.com/

How to Make Money Online and Avoid the BIGGEST Mistake In Internet Marketing!

If you cruise any Internet Marketing forum long enough you’ll see all sorts of netrepreneur wannabes asking the same question over and over again:

“How can I make money online?”

Hey, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a question like that.  As a matter

of fact, joining some really great forums and hammering other netrepreneurs with questions is just about the best way to learn. 

You’ll usually get a lot of advice from more seasoned Internet marketers (IMer’s) because people love to help other people.  Some people will write volumes helping other folks gain knowledge and experience, because it’s always fun and helpful to do so. (It also helps build authority in your subject area.)

So, if you are just starting out, you should check out a couple of the links I have provided for you at the end of this post. I do frequent these sites occasionally, but I do not make any money from the resources I provide, so I am being objective here.

Let’s get back to the original question, “How can I make money online?”

Well, it’s actually EASY to make money online.  Shoot, I make anywhere from $100 to $200 a month on Google AdSense with advertisements alone, without writing a single word.  The money comes in without a single lift of my finger. No kidding.

However:

Learning how to do the work, strategically placing ads, making sure the coding was right, keyword research, and writing articles by the tons, as well as building the website and blog WAS A LOT OF WORK.

Yeah, now that all of that ground work is finished I’m getting checks from AdSense. 

I don’t want to deceive you, but there is a learning curve and a lot of work for making any money online like that.  The work and education isn't hard and you don’t have to be a genius to do it, but there is a lot of work and learning you’ll have to do.

“I thought he said he doesn't write a single word?”

I don’t…NOW.  (At least for that particular website I don’t.)

Initially, I wrote for years and racked up tons of pages and loads of blog posts for the AdSense site, and now that stuff is floating around on the Internet, each page generating traffic for the site.  I haven’t actually written for that website for years because I got BURNED OUT with that business model, and have since moved on.

Let’s face it, surviving on a mere $200 a month isn’t going to get ya too far, and there are some months where the money is much less than that because I no longer write for it.

Technically it isn’t a hard process to learn or do, but you have to slog away at it day and night, and for the longest time you won’t know whether you are doing the right thing or not. 

CAN You Make Money Online?

As I just showed you, you can definitely make money online, but it’s a ton of work doing it the way I just described.  I’m sure there are a half a dozen Internet Guru’s and IMer’s out there that will tell you how you can make Bazillions of $$$ by buying their systems - $200 to $4000+ to learn.  You can then lie on a beach with your laptop and soak in some rays while checking your Paypal or credit card statement to see all of the BIG money that just got thrown into your account.

It’s been my experience that you are not going to fare well in those waters.

As a matter of fact, I think it would be a good idea for you to watch the following video before doing ANYTHING.  Not because I’m trying to stop you from being an entrepreneur or netrepreneur, but because I want you to have a REALISTIC view of what you are getting involved with.

WARNING, there is some rather harsh language by a few of the "Marketing Gurus" on here. So please keep children out of the room.  (Makes you wonder why anyone would listen to them.)

Yes, I’m trying to kill that wide-eyed-optimism that you may have about starting and running a business on the web and have you think about this REALISTICALLY.

THE BIGGEST MISTAKE REVEALED!!!

So, here for the first time, live and in person, the BIGGEST INTERNET MARKETING MISTAKE THAT YOU CAN MAKE!!!!!

(Drum roll please…)

Not having a good product or service to sell.

Kinda anti-climatic, wouldn’t ya say?

Yep, you must have something to sell that is worthy, if not, you are absolutely dead before you even get started.  Just to drive the point home, here’s a poem that the famous marketer, Dan Kennedy, likes to refer to whenever he hits on the subject of marketing a product or service:

A lion met a tiger 

As they drank beside a pool 

Said the tiger, “Tell me why 

You’re roaring like a fool.” 

 “That’s not foolish,” said the lion 

With a twinkle in his eyes 

“They call me king of all the beasts 

Because I advertise!” 

 A rabbit heard them talking 

And ran home like a streak. 

He thought he’d try the lion’s plan, 

But his roar was just a squeak. 

 A fox came to investigate— 

Had luncheon in the woods. 

Moral: when you advertise, my friends, 

Be sure you've got the goods!

Initially, you should have an outstanding product or service to sell, which means that you should do a butt-load of research or development before you even think about marketing it anywhere.

I know that there are loads of “affiliate products” and “affiliate programs” to

join and sell, and if you’re good at selling them, God bless you.  Be fruitful and multiply.

However, if you have just wandered over to ClickBank and joined their affiliate program, hoping to sell newly created products and earn those high commissions, you’ll probably have a tougher time than you think.  

For one thing, you should never try to sell those products without buying them and trying them yourself.  You’ll have no idea whether or not what you are selling has any value or if it works.  Also, you’ll need to know EVERYTHING ABOUT THAT PRODUCT IN ORDER TO SELL IT.

I write ad copy for all sorts of businesses, and I can’t write a word for my clients until I have a pile of information, know or have had tried the product or service, and have actually interviewed people that have used it —to include the secretary of the company if I can interview her as well. (You won’t believe how much a secretary knows about a business and how it runs; she’ll know more than anyone else in the company, guaranteed.)

And by the way, if the business or product sucks, I will pass on the job. 

Mediocrity is for losers…

In my humble opinion, if you don’t have a product that you KNOW and LOVE and have at least poured your best efforts into, you should probably forget it.  In order to be successful in your business, you are going to be talking, thinking, using and selling the object (or objects) of your passion constantly. 

Why would you get involved in something that you don’t use or respect yourself?

Can you see the reason why this preliminary step is so vitally important?

I’m not going to tell you what kind of business you should get into.  That’s what makes it your business.  But I am going to tell you that if your standards aren't high, and you aren't busting your butt and creating a stellar product, then you are kidding yourself. 

The people that are short-cutting the system by selling flimsy info-products that tell you nothing more than what's already out there on the Internet for FREE is a bad way to go.

I believe the days of the snake-oil salesman is just about over... On the other hand, you know what P.T. Barnum used to say:

There's a _____________ born every _______________.  

However, if you haven’t side stepped, if you have a product or a service that is the best you can do or create, then you have just taken the biggest step in Internet marketing or even bricks and mortar marketing.

Pat yourself on the back because you are well on your way to take the next important steps in cranking up a business that will have a definite impact and purpose in the world.

Links to Really Important Internet Market Information:

WarriorForum Internet Marketing

SEO BOOK -Article on Making Money Online

Seth Godin's Blog

_________________________________________________________________

Mark "Elmo" Ellis is a writer specializing in advertising copy and he wants to hear from you.  If you got something out of this article, please leave a comment because blog writing is a lonely business.  

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

People read your crap and don't comment, Google plus it, or share it.  

If you want to get a FREE awesome report on how to use highly effective advertising copy, please click the link below and send me an email.  I'm too cheap to use a paid auto-responder and besides, if you really want to get a free gift, it isn't much to do to get it.

No, we will never share or sell your email address. We promise.

Please send me a free copy of The Secret 7 -How to use advanced tactics in your adcopy to dominate your competition! 

The Magic Button that Will Make Your Sales Message Easy!

OK, before you get too excited and think that this is going to be an easy-street method of making money, it isn't.  But it is a very important and serious component of your sales message that will make your life a bazillion times easier when crafting a sales message for your business.

Just about any auto repair shop will tell you that people don’t usually bring their cars into the shop when the car is running great.  My wife is really big on this; she keeps track of our cars and can tell you when they need to go into the shop for a checkup.  Thank God she does this, because our cars last for a long time, well after we have paid them off thanks to her diligence. 

However, most people won’t take their vehicles to a shop until something starts to go wrong.  So, the driving force behind their patronage of a repair shop is based on inconvenience or pain of some sort.  If that car is dead and they can’t get to work on time, or they have to rely on someone else to get to their destination, there is massive discomfort. 

I can 100% guarantee they will want to get their car into a shop, pronto.

Pain - the Magic Sales Button!

It’s the same principle with advertising copy.  If you don’t exploit some sort of pain in your copy, then you will have a very tough time selling any product or service.

For example: You’re writing advertising copy for a cruise in the Caribbean and you start out by telling prospects how beautiful the trip is going to be. You start telling your prospect all of the wonderful places that the boat is going to stop at and how fun it is going to be. 

Wrong!

You need to hit the prospect where it hurts.

You should talk about the lousy winter they just survived.  You should bring up how the traffic in the city sucks during a really cold snow storm and how everyone

was totally agitated by the experience.  You could also talk about how the spouse needs a break from all of this because there just isn't any time to enjoy life.

You know, get inside the head of your average prospect and tell them how horrible their situation is.  Once you've thoroughly exploited all of the pain they are feeling, it will be much easier to sell to that.

One last caveat of this approach is you really have to know what your prospect’s sore spots are.  If you don’t know, and you only have a general idea, it is still easier than trying to manufacture the pain in his or her life. 

Manufacturing pain IS a pain.

It is not impossible to do, but you have to have very long advertising copy to create it. 

So, remember to use this approach when you begin to write you next sales copy and your chances for converting will be much better. 

Editors Note:  I just found this great post on the Warrior Forum on how to use surveys to find out what eats at your prospects.  It is Brilliant! 

If you want to learn more about how to write incredible ad copy, I've written a great report called "The Secret 7 - How to use advanced tactics in your adcopy to dominate your competition!"  just click on the the email link and shoot me a message: 

Please send me a free copy of The Secret 7 -How to use advanced tactics in your adcopy to dominate your competition! 

Why Some Will Make Money with YouTube and Others Never Will

5 Easy Ways to Make Your Video Better and Stomp the Heck Out of Your Competition

Today I’m going to rant, so get back and prepare to be entertained by watching my eyes bulge, veins explode, and the rest of my carcass go into cardiac arrest.  Please, allow me this.  My doctor told me I can’t have any more pizza, my minister has me sworn off of swearing, and my wife threw my lucky socks away. 

Look, I need to rant about this pet irritation I have, I don’t have ANYTHING else to get my jollies off on, so lay off, will ya?

---ahem---

This complaint is about your YouTube videos. 

You know, some of you just don’t get it.  In marketing, it takes more than just stuffing your face into your laptop or riding around in your car acting like you really have it all together to prove to me that you truly understand how to properly make a video that sells or informs.

Not that I’m some guru or anything special, but let’s assume for a moment that I am your target audience.  (I mean, I COULD be in your target market for all you know, right?)

First of all, you need to look professional in your video or at least look like you have a brain in your head.  I can already hear some of you screaming at your laptop screens, “Wait a minute!  I just saw a Seth Godin video, and all he had on was a T-Shirt and boxer shorts!  If he’s the best and he’s dressed like that, then I should do the same, right?  RIGHT???”

Seth Godin, Yanik Silver, Dan Kennedy, John Carlton and any other marketing guru that you can throw at me have Guru-Status.  They have written tons of books, newsletters, done seminars, have at least three or four websites and when you go to Alexa to check on the traffic they are getting, they actually have a little jagged line on their websites statistics chart, so please, a little respect for those that can and do wear boxers in their videos.

Sheesh!

I mean, they are riding so high, they fall butt-backwards into money, while the rest of us have to scratch and peck to get a mere pittance.

So YOU and I will have to look decent.  Look clean and try to dress casual to appeal to the masses.  You don’t have to wear a three piece suit unless you are working for “the Donald” or “da Ahh-Nald”.  Wear a nice shirt, floss, brush, and comb. Getting rid of nose hair would help too.

Now, I've seen lesser wannabe gurus giving dissertations on how to make money on the Internet driving their cars, drinking beer out of mugs, walking their dogs in the park, etc. I’m actually surprised that one of them hasn't tried to make one in the shower or hanging upside down from a tree.

For some reason in their mind, it is not the message, but the area they filmed the video in that’s more important.  Big mistake.  You could have made the video sitting on the toilet for all I care! If you had some very valuable information that I could actually use, it would be worth watching you strain between phrases. So remember, it is the message not the area that is muy, muy importante. (Spanish)

So far there are two rules:

1.  Look good

2.  Have good information to convey

OK, ya still with me?  Good.

The next piece of advice I could give you is to actually write a script.  Sit down and type out an entire script.  I hate to see a video wherein people are fumbling words like crazy, interrupted by the words “ahhhhh” and “ummm”. It is super distracting, a waste of time, and it gets very boring after a while.  

I would much rather watch a video where I could understand everything that was said, the writing was concise, and I didn't have to sit for an hour and a half trying to get a tidbit of information that you said I could really use.

Also, in the same vein as looking professional in your video, you will want your material to look and sound like it was made by some one that has a brain that isn’t tabula rasa.

So:

3.  Write a script

Oh, by the way, you can buy and download software for your laptop that scrolls the words for you like a teleprompter.  I made this video using such software. I put my video on a tripod with its legs retracted all of the way in, right behind my laptop and read the words as they scrolled.  Kubrick would be proud of my innovation.

4.  Don’t use too many channels

My Master’s degree is in Education Technology, and one of the things that I saw a lot of research on was clarity of message and how people can only process on or two “channels” at a time.  Channels being messages or enhancements that people had to take in at one time.  For example: you can have a person speaking with music and that was OK because it was only two channels; music and a spoken word.  But, if you have a video where people are speaking, music is playing, words popping up on the screen with sound effects, etc. then that was more than two channels and therefore it was too confusing. Keep it simple by using only one or two channels at a time.

5.  Make it interesting

You can still make an interesting video on a limited budget using software that you can get for next to nothing.  I use Sony Vegas, but there are even cheaper software packages that you can get to do editing that is good enough that will make your videos shine.  Also, if you decide to make instructional videos, you can use Camtasia, which is an outstanding screen capture software.  I have made many, many videos using this software and it is worth every penny.

This video I made for an assignment I had for Boise State has had over 20,000 views.  I used Camtasia software to produce it:

Using this type of software, you can bounce between different screens while audio voices over the different scenes, you can add credits and words to the screen to emphasize a point, you can grab attention by using music.  But once again, you can make a high quality video that will easily outshine you competitors and give you an extra edge.   

So, to recap:

1.            Look good

2.            Have good information to convey

3.            Write a script

4.            Don’t use too many channels

5.            Make it interesting

Mark “Elmo” Ellis is a freelance writer, able to write compelling direct mail pieces, video scripts, brochures, and website copy that will grab the attention of your readers, reel them in, and get them to increase your bottom line.