email and referral marketing

[alwaystoday]

I got a list of 3k contacts recently,

The list doesn't know me, so it's kind of blackhat I guess.

But I'm going to mail them an affiliate offer and see if i can get some to purchase.

This journey thread is about how I do with the project. I'm going to try to get the first email sent this weekend.

I need to (in no particular order):

- Find an affiliate network to use (am thinking clickbank but need to research).
- Find an affiliate product to market (mostly male audience).
- Pick a domain / name , as I can't send my email from a gmail account looks spammy.
- Put a basic landing page up on the domain.
- Investigate mass e-mailing options that are cheap.

Email I learnt about mautic so am hoping i can send mails for free, am going to spend next few hours learning about it.

Will update later!

 

[alwaystoday]

OK pleased to say am moving things forward.

I signed up for a clickbank account. I think clickbank is the way to go, as I'm new to referral marketing, and at least I know they can be trusted, they've been around forever after all.

Niche:
I spent half hour or so trying to find some relevent products, I found two, one I make $47 per sale, one I make $15 per sale, the $47 per sale also has $120 rebill, the $17 has 0 rebill.
The $47 one is about game , the $15 is about something that could apply to male and female.

My list is primarily male but some small % are female. As I'm mailing these people cold, I think a product offering to teach people game, may seem a little spammy, although the landing page is pretty good.
I'm also thinking as I have no relationship built up with the people I'm mailing, going for a smaller overal transaction cost might be smarter.

I was torn between the two products, but I think in the end I'm setting on the cheaper one, even though I make less per sale and zero rebill, it feels like the right move, just as I think it will be less controversial and maybe therefore meet less mental resistance when the people i mail get the message. - What's your thoughts on this?

I.T.
I sent up a virtual machine using an free month trial. I've installed plesk on it.
I have purchased a domain, so I have a domain to send my mail from [email protected].
I'm in the process of pointing the domain to my server and setting up cloudflare.

Next steps
Figure out how to install Mautic on Windows.
Investigate Amazon SES , looks like it'll do the job as mail server.
Finally get over the idea I might have chosen the wrong affilaite product as I only make $15 per sale and no rebill. If 10 people buy it, it's $150 and likely a learning experience.

I'm on a shoestring budget (literarlly) but managed to save a few $ on the domain by going for a non .com. I really don't think it matters as they've never heard of me before if I use .com or .xyz (i'm not using .xyz though lol).
Hopefully Amazon SES works out cheap. My card was declined for the Amazon trial, as it was overdrawn by £10... might have to spend £10 of my remaining $18 budget to bring that deficit down and start my Amazon trial.

Next update soon...

 

[alwaystoday]

OK moved things forward. Cleared deficit in bank account. Registered Amazon cloud account. Setup Amazon Simple Email Server. Decided on affiliate product 100%.

Today:
- Build basic web-page for site.
- Apply to have Amazon SES moved out of sandbox.
- Install Mautic on my server.

 

[Geth_Prime]

Following this thread! I just wanna know how do you host mautic? I am not a web developer so I don't really know my ins and outs

 

[estronkadar]

.com adds some credibility

 

[alwaystoday]

Not sure I agree with the .com credibility , most people don't know the difference between a .com a .co.uk and a .biz. Outside of very IT savvy or web pros/ marketers. I think it has a tiny perceptive advantage given it's .com , but as the site isn't my main traffic source, I really don't think it matters.

Geth, thanks for the follow, if you're using a a cpanel type host check this out, I watched it a couple of days ago it's pretty good. Be sure to watch the second part on cron jobs though too.

I haven't got around to installing it yet, spent all morning/afternoon finishing my website. But that's finished now. Applied to have the Amazon email limits lifted, will update how that goes.

So that's two of the three items on my todo checked off...

Next task:

- Install Mautic.

 

[Geth_Prime]

Just installed Mautic. Encountered some problems. Will now go after my hosting company to address the issues.

 

[alwaystoday]

Nice let me know if you have any problems.

Update:
- Installed Mautic on my Windows server.

This was interesting as it involved me learning how to set up scheduled tasks in Plesk, but useful learning.

Going to spend rest of today getting up to speed with Mautic.

 

[randybishop]

Sending cold emails to non-niche related list is probably not going to yield many converts.

 

[alwaystoday]

list is somewhat niche related, i chose a product that imo is likley to be of interest to the list

 

[overdrive2016]

My thoughts on this is that it isn't going to work.

You are gravely over-estimating.

How old is this list? Is it targeted? How many times has the list already been marketed to?

I think you'd be far better off joining a CPA Network and promoting some sort of PPL offer as it's infinitely more likely users would fill in a form than get their credit card out for you.

Also, if you only want to send 3,000 emails why are you setting up a server and not just using an ESP?

 

[alwaystoday]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts

 

[overdrive2016]

So, what are the answers to the questions regarding the nature of your list?

 

[Cashback]

I follow you with this journey.Interesting.Very basic and step by step.Good for beginners.

 

[Geth_Prime]

My thoughts on this is that it isn't going to work.

You are gravely over-estimating.

How old is this list? Is it targeted? How many times has the list already been marketed to?

I think you'd be far better off joining a CPA Network and promoting some sort of PPL offer as it's infinitely more likely users would fill in a form than get their credit card out for you.

Also, if you only want to send 3,000 emails why are you setting up a server and not just using an ESP?

I love how you just blast the dude to death with questions that doubt his efforts. He is just trying out something new for himself. What's the worst thing that could happen? He's not wasting his money on bad things, at least he's learning something new. Give him a chance.

Jesus, IM can be fucking demotivating sometimes.

 

[randybishop]

My thoughts on this is that it isn't going to work.

You are gravely over-estimating.

How old is this list? Is it targeted? How many times has the list already been marketed to?

I think you'd be far better off joining a CPA Network and promoting some sort of PPL offer as it's infinitely more likely users would fill in a form than get their credit card out for you.

Also, if you only want to send 3,000 emails why are you setting up a server and not just using an ESP?

Yeah, i agree, seems like a lot of effort

I love how you just blast the dude to death with questions that doubt his efforts. He is just trying out something new for himself. What's the worst thing that could happen? He's not wasting his money on bad things, at least he's learning something new. Give him a chance.

Jesus, IM can be fucking demotivating sometimes.

A reality check can't hurt either.

 

[overdrive2016]

I love how you just blast the dude to death with questions that doubt his efforts. He is just trying out something new for himself. What's the worst thing that could happen? He's not wasting his money on bad things, at least he's learning something new. Give him a chance.

Jesus, IM can be fucking demotivating sometimes.

Yes, IM can be demotivating sometimes when people like you and OP end up failing because they were too stubborn to reconsider their methods as advised from people that have more experience than them.

Any experienced mailer would tell OP the same. I find it baffling that you interpret that post as "blasting the dude to death" when I offered simpler alternatives to him and even tried to gauge more of an understanding of what he was doing to be able to give further pointers.

Oh well, we'll see how this journey pans out

Randybishop knows what's up.

 

[alwaystoday]

No one has failed or is failing in this thread, lol at the haters. Will update again soon, things going just swimmingly right now.

 

[DunDidIt2X]

Dont let these dudes get you off focused. Keep moving forward and stay focused. Massive bulk spamming does work if done right.

 

[randybishop]

At the very least try to warm up your prospects before you shoot off your sales lander.

http://blog.close.io/5-cold-email-templates-that-will-generate-warm-leads-for-your-sales-team

Good luck