The focus of the week ahead is going to be on what happens to the retailers on Friday… the infamous day after Thanksgiving where sales are plentiful and the consumer typically comes out in full-force. With people lined up around the block at your local Target, Best Buy and Wal-Mart, everyone tries to get a piece of the action. Heck, even Coca-Cola has made a splash in years past by selling energy drinks and sodas to people waiting up at 3AM to be the first in line.

What’s New This Year?

This year, I wouldn’t expect the results to be very hot. Why? Stores are doing everything that they can to beat competitors on sales — Toys R’ Us, for example, is going to open to Black Friday sales at 10:00PM Thanksgiving night and stay open for 24 hours straight. Similarly, many U.S. department stores have moved their opening times forward by more than an hour.

Is a race for time a bullish indicator of sales? I would argue that it is not. Does opening at 3AM instead of 4AM actually boost sales? I would have to believe anyone out there that early is going to go shopping regardless… you are simply shifting sales that are practically in the bag to earlier times of the day. Anyone who wants to shop on Black Friday is going to get that opportunity — which is why I believe personally that this year will be bigger for Amazon.com and other online-focused shops than it will be for any physical stores.

Where are the deals?
Deal-hunters should check out the web’s #1 coupon site, SlickDeals.net. They have a Black Friday section that I will likely monitor for unique deals throughout the week. If there is something lucrative out there, this site is going to be the first to find it.

What are the Hot Sellers This Season?

I’ve taken a look through some Black Friday ad scans, as provided by SlickDeals.net, and have identified the following list of products that should sell well next weekend. If you are an internet marketer, it would be in your best interest to design campaigns that run off of the success of these consumer products:

• Mobile Phones (always a big winner on Black Friday):
  • Notables: Samsung Fascinate, Intensity II; Droid Incredible; Pantech Laser; LG Optimus S
• Flat-Screen Televisions:
  • Notables: Panasonic Viera; Samsung LEDs; Toshiba LCDs
• E-Readers:
  • Notables: Barnes & Noble Nook; Pandigital Novel
  • I do not believe the Kindle will sell well, they seem to be targeting Christmas and have already dropped their price down to $139
• Toys:
  • iPod Touch, Toy Story 3, Transformers, Barbie

Conclusion: The trends are light in general this year… and I think unless Amazon unveils a new price decrease for Black Friday shoppers in their Amazon Kindle e-Reader, it is going to be a very bad shopping year across the board. Deals are pretty scarce at this point (was much more active by this point in time last year), and I think retailers are hesitant to drop prices and kill their margins because the buying volume just isn’t there to make up for lower profits. The U.S. Savings Rate is up near all time highs, and the consumer is cautious — I’m bearish overall on Black Friday shopping and believe it will miss expectations.

-Jimvesting.com

Yesterday, I wrote a post about my latest sales video… which was actually my first attempt at making a short pitch to help me sell a product. I think that the end result came out very nice, especially because I didn’t have much of a budget and didn’t physically “shoot” a video. What I failed to talk about was how to actually make it happen, which I will proceed to talk about now!

The Key Elements to Consider

When you want to relay a message successfully and convert new business in a short time span, it is important that you hit home in as many ways as possible. Here are a few elements that I have found to be key catalysts in any successful sales video:

Problem- The first step in any sales pitch is identifying a problem. This is the most significant thing you will be doing when you are trying to sell someone a new product — convincing them that they have something that needs fixing. In my video, I start out immediately by talking about how “you aren’t making any money online” and how a surplus of online products are “confusing you”… basically you need a product that works and you don’t have it!

Solution- After you suggest a problem, it’s time to come in like a knight in shining armor with your solution. The solution should obviously involve the product you are promoting, and needs to relay why exactly your product is the right one for the job. In my case, I talk about how my method has worked for me… and use a logical argument to suggest that it will work for anyone.

Support- The support is the most critical part of your sales video, because in it you can turn a person who is on the fence into a buyer… at any price (within reason). You need to show that your method works, use testimonials and maybe even visual proof of success. Support can by implicit or explicit, and in my video I do both. Implicit in my video is imagery of a private beach and people having success — things that invoke feelings of fame and fortune.  Explicit images that I use are the screenshots of my actual earnings, which is also useful to show that the method does in fact work as promised.

Sale- The final step is also vital, and it is making the sale. For me, this wasn’t a problem as I could simply say “you get all of this, for free” to make the conversion. For a paid product, it is going to be essential to make the price attractive, throw in a bonus or two, and make people feel that they are making out like bandits.

Jimvesting’s Top Five Video Editing Programs

Now that you have a good idea of what you need to do, we need the software to get the job done. There are really two ways to shoot a sales video: 1) by camera in person; or 2) compiling images/text and audio. Both methods are effective, and I simply chose option #2 because I was a bit too lazy and wanted to whip something up fast. No matter what you choose, you will need a video editing program on hand to accomplish the pitch. I have personally used around a dozen different editing programs. Based on this, these are my top five:

1. Corel VideoStudio
2. Adobe Premiere Elements
3. Pinnacle Studio
4. Apple iMovie
5. Windows Movie Maker

With this, you have all the information you need to make a high-powered sales video that will help you convince customers quickly to buy the product you are promoting and help make your campaign a big success! If you have used this post to make your own video, feel free to post a link to your sales page below — we’d love to have a look!

-Jimvesting

What if I told you that you could easily be making $100s every day, while at the same time boosting your number of backlinks and increasing your Google search ranking positions… sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? I’ve found the way, and this is a true tested method for making it big. Normally, people will horde this secret and make you pay for the information… here we are a bit more open with each other.

We all know how rewarding affiliate marketing tactics can potentially be by now, and I’ve found one heck of a deal that I feel like we can all exploit till they take the offer away. For now, get in while the getting’s good! If you do the following, I can guarantee that you will make at least $50. Period.

The Idea is Formed… The Stage is Set

Once you start thinking like a marketer, ideas like these simply come to you. I’m not saying that I am smarter than your average bear… I just know how to think “greedy.” Well let’s cut to the chase, shall we? It looks like our friends over at Text-Link-Ads released a new advertising platform… and once again over-emphasized the affiliate system for us. How nice of them!

Last time it was with their text-link-ads network, this time it is with the release of InLinks.com. This site is a great idea. This “new” form of advertising allows you to buy up ad slots in the form of text links hidden within actual blog posts. For example, I can pay $15 bucks for a link with the anchor “peanut butter” on a PageRank 3 blog… and it will go put the order in, making the text on a matching blog a link that is built to my specifications.

What initially jumped out at me here is that you get a GUARANTEED $25 for anyone that signs up as an advertiser under you. That’s right… cha-ching! Not only that, but they have an awesome promotion that lets you purchase, as an advertiser, $100 worth in ads for just $1 using the coupon “100free.” So getting people to join is the easiest thing you’ve ever done… it’s a no-brainer! They try to make it a bit harder on you, but it’s nothing we can’t handle… let’s do this step by step.

Step-By-Step Path to Instant Riches

1. Signing Up As An Advertiser
If you are going to join up with the InLinks.com network, why not take advantage of their incredible $100 for $1 deal, eh? Heck, if you need a buck I’ll even PayPal you $1 just because this is so irresistible. Because you need a publisher or advertiser account anyway… let’s set up an advertiser account so we can boost our own ranks while making money. If this isn’t a win-win, I don’t know what is.

Now enter your information for security purposes (you won’t get mailed):

Now just submit your application and confirm that the email you signed up with is yours… and you are ready to go!

2. Buying Up Some “InLinks Futures”
I actually really like the idea behind InLinks.com, and it looks like something that will evade Google for quite some time. Heck, I might even sign up as a publisher later to make some more money. Until then, let’s order some “InLinks.com Futures.” Futures are essentially where you enter a keyword phrase, and as soon as a client publishes a blog post with that term in it, you get the purchase and the text becomes your link!

Assuming you want to get $100 for $1 using the code “100free,” which is what I did, I like to just buy what they call “package 1.” Click the check-box next to that and hit the refresh button to get your link entry fields to appear for your order. Simply put in the keyword phrases you want marketed, a link you want them directed to, and you are good to go!

I feel like this offer is beneficial to new bloggers, and even popular bloggers. Links are links… and when you can nab quality for $1, you take it. Bottom Line.

3. Get Your Affiliate Account Set Up
Assuming you already signed up as an advertisers… you actually have the capabilities to act as an affiliate already as a default! Simply click over to the “Affiliate” tab on the top of your screen, and you will get into the system that generates an extremely well-cloaked version of your affiliate link. What InLinks.com DOESN’T want people doing is getting their referral link out without putting their image out there too. Forget that! Not everyone can spare the ad space, and I’d rather just have a link to give to people any day… right?

What InLinks.com gives you is a javascript code that has one function to encrypt your link, and another to decrypt it once it is on your blog or website. We can get around this simply by copying their code and making our own executable file. Confused? Don’t be.

How-To: Open up “Notepad” on your computer (or another text-editor where you can save as any file type). Paste all of the code in the file and save it as “whatever.php”. Upload the new file somewhere to your server, and hop to that web address in your web browser. Your referral link should be in plain view! I like using the “text link” option instead of the banner for practical reasons.

Alternative: If you don’t want to mess with that, you could also simply upload it like they want you to and copy the actual referral link down when you click on your ad for InLinks.com. You’ll get a code like this: “http://www.inlinks.com/?ref=XXXXXX”

4. Start Marketing Your InLinks Program!
Now that you have your account, you have ads ready to go for more exposure and you have your real referral link to pass around… it’s time to put your best marketing skills to use and make money! I would suggest pushing the program on your blog along with the coupon code I suggested above simply because it is so easy to do. Nobody is going to (or should) pass up that opportunity, and you will make an instant $25 for everyone that takes your advice.

This method is something that I have developed independently, and I feel can be wildly successful. Remember, just as Text-Link-Ads took away their affiliate system, InLinks.com can do the same thing. Because of this, you should jump on the opportunity as it exists! If you liked this article, give me some props by subscribing to my blog, Digging the post or Stumbling the post.

-Jimvesting

A few days ago, I wrote part 3 of my series about optimizing keywords for Google search engine rankings. Now that we are into the marketing portion of that lesson, it’s important to learn the most effective means to get the word out about your blog, or to market your keyword phrase.

I originally listed “guest posts” as one of the best ways to start your “friendly” marketing campaign… essentially the opposite of what is referred to as “bum” marketing. As this original thesis holds true, I have found that if you are working on a low budget (as most upstart bloggers are), you need a way to get the maximum amount of traffic and link juice pointed toward your blog, with as little cash flow involved. The solution is guest posts… so let’s give you the Net Fool’s Marketing Method!

Understanding the Costs

Let’s have a look at some of the standard costs of marketing. Usually, big corporations and partnerships have no problem opening up their wallet for some high-quality traditional advertising. Banner ads, text link ads, paid reviews and full out partnerships. However, if you are just working on your own and don’t really have the capital to spend across the competitive landscape… I would recommend that you try to focus more on the cheaper alternatives.

The funny thing here is that free advertising can be just as effective as paid advertising. Let’s focus on guest posts v. paid reviews today. If you pay a blogger to do a review, it is going to cost upwards of $100 for a quality website… sometimes more like $500. This is a hefty price tag for 24 hours of spotlight, isn’t it? What’s more is the in today’s world, people like to look past paid reviews and consider them misleading right off the bat! On the other hand, you could write a guest post for a blogger to fill in for them on a day they don’t want to write for FREE. You may not get the same level of exposure, but you’ll get yourself a link in the first paragraph pointing back to your website (and boosting your SEO) that can drive some serious traffic and subscribers your way. Sounds good right?

Capitalizing on the Marketing Spread

If you are anything like me, you won’t want to be sitting in your room all day writing out 500+ word articles just to be able to submit them to other websites for a guest post. This is something you could do once or twice, and you will probably never want to do again. So what I do is hire writers for me to do all the writing at around $3-$5 a pop. Well right now you might be thinking hey, I have no budget… how can I afford to pay someone else to do something that I could do myself!?

Over the past year, I have learned a lot about the true value of time. In the earlier stages of my blogging, I would attempt to do everything myself because I felt that if I could handle something, why would I pay another to do it? The problem with this is that some things just aren’t worth your time… and often writing articles can be that activity. You might be spending more, but you can also make more with your time!

With this in mind, would you rather pay $150 for a review on a high-quality blog, or $3 for a pre-written outsourced post that you re-format with your link in it and submit as a guest post for free? That’s pretty much the same exposure for $147 less! Multiplying this out, you could potentially just use a $150 advertising budget and use it all on guest posts… so you could get effective links placed on 50 blogs for the price of one!

Getting Your Game-Plan In Motion

So now that we understand how much cheaper guest posts are than paid reviews, let’s work on the exact method in what we are going to do here. Again, we are going to seek out a whole bunch of high-quality blogs that are located in our niche that we can potentially guest post on. Most bloggers are friendly and looking for filler, so this really isn’t as difficult as it sounds.

Once we have a list of bloggers that we think we can guest post on, we should get our articles together, eh? No blogger ever really reveals their best writers, and I don’t have a “go to” writer per se. However, you can find writers that put out excellent original content for $3-$5 per 500 words on the DigitalPoint Webmaster Forums. It’s pretty easy to find good people on that forum, so that’s where I would go for the best bang for your buck.

The key to successful guest posting is having high-quality, well-researched content that is 100% original and flows nicely. Lists of “top five” (or similar) are the norm for guest posts, as they keep things orderly and very social media friendly. I typically pay $3 an article with my articles, so this is your low-cost solution!

Once you have your articles, getting free advertising is as simple as re-writing a top section on each article that you get outsourced with a link back to your website. If you are targeting a keyword in Google, you can even link that term up as anchor text and you are on your way. Contact the bloggers you were interested in guest posting for… and send them your articles.

Remember: Never send the same article twice, we want to send everyone a unique article!

Bottom Line: This is an insanely profitable and low-cost marketing solution “for the rest of us.” By marketing the Net Fool way, you get insane cost savings every time! You can use this for as many or as few articles that you want… the choice is yours! Guest posts are perhaps the most effective marketing strategies that I have come across, and I fully encourage you to do the same.

-Jimvesting