Increasing Your Online Footprint To Make You More Money
Hey everyone! It’s been awhile since my last post so I figured I’d discuss something cool today.
What I want to talk about is why having your footprints all over the online is important, and also share a cool technique you can use to help you build more footprints.
So what’s a footprint and why do you need them?
An online footprint is essentially your network of assets that you have created online over the months and years. These footprints are assets that drive traffic and sales regardless of what you do later on.
Footprints can include:
- Affiliate sites
- Articles on article directories
- Blogs
- Squeeze Pages
- Giveaway content
- Products you sell
I know this is very obvious, so I want to relate it to my own personal experience with a story of a footprint I created back in 2009. To this day, over a year and a half later, this simple footprint that took me about a days worth of work to build still sends me highly valuable buyer leads on a daily basis.
Even though I haven’t touched it since I put it online 18 months ago, I’ve added over 1000 buyers to my list because of it.. Every day I login and check my subscription stats and can always count on this simple footprint to add a few buyers to my list on a daily basis.
Here’s how one simple footprint added 1000 buyers to my list
It essentially revolves around creating 2 high quality freebies, and giving one away with master resell rights.
Here’s what I made:
1) A high quality PDF document that gave away one solid piece of information. It was roughly 11 pages long, and the only promotion element in it was 2 links to where they could get another freebie from me if they liked the PDF they were reading. I gave away master resell rights to this product so that anyone who downloaded it could legally distribute it.
2) A squeeze page – I linked the high quality PDF to my squeeze page.
3) Another giveaway freebie to fulfill my promise on the squeeze page in step 2.
Here’s where the magic happens
I gave away master resell rights to the high quality freebie I created in step one. I then went on forums related to my topic and advertised my freebie as a free master resell rights product they could sell, give away as a bonus, or give away as a freebie as long as they kept the document intact. The reason why I didn’t allow them to edit the document was because I wanted to make sure my links to my squeeze page remained in there so I could capture leads.
What happened?
Since my master resell rights product was so high quality and didn’t include a lot of advertising within the content, people started giving away my product as an added bonus when people purchased one of their products.
Some people placed my MMR product on PLR networks which helped increase the circulation of it. Some people even sold it on Ebay!
And since the information within the giveaway product was such high quality, people reading through it followed my links in the document to get an additional freebie I offered to accompany the original document (I linked to my squeeze page from the resell rights document).
What’s best about all these subscribers is that they are highly qualified – not only are they buyers, but they now like my material 🙂
So now I’ve got to ask… what did you do today to place more of your own footprints online? Comment below…
Nice post man. I totally agree on this. I get tons of opt-ins from forums, just because my signature link offers them a nice freebie. When people opt-in, I send them free training videos on the very first method that made me my first Clickbank check online for $306.58.
Those who opt-in end up being such strong supporters of mine and my list is extremely responsive.
Has the Google farmer slap hurt your Amazon affiliate marketing? Is article marketing dead?
Good post,
I have not done this yet although I have read a lot about it. I started making a video series for a niche, right now I am debating whether to give it away for free all over the net where these people hang out in return for subscribers or charge a small price for it….
After reading this I am now thinking just to give them away, to build up my authority and a good relationship.
Thanks
Nice post Dan been thinking about doing something similar. Where did you advertise exactly?
thanks
Matt
Good strategy Brock, I’ve been doing quite a lot of blog commenting for backlinks such as i’m doing right now. I really liked your idea and i’m actually working on a similar viral pdf that should be good to go shortly.
Dwight Anthony
Hi Dan I am going to start thinking about doing as you say… especially because over the years I have a few sales pages that have started to slow down and not make sales anymore… so these would be good to instead offer a freebie that visitors can use and sell or do anything with… linking back to my squeeze, and filled with good content… it’s a good idea bro… thanks… PS I got my review site looking excellent thanks to your WSO amazon guide… I appreciate it… Martin
Hey Dan,
Thanks for sharing. Indeed leaving footprints around the Internet helps to build up your authority and most of all build your list. Glad to hear of such great success on your part.
Cheers
Lester
Dan,
This is solid advice. The main takeaway I think is that a lot of action over time pays off. I get opt-ins each day from forum posts, articles, videos, and pdfs that I’ve spread all over the internet.
Your exact approach is really powerful for getting people to your site and getting your name out there.
Thanks Dan,
Really love the way you outlined this process in such a clear manner.
Too many take the processes they follow and when attempting to share them they just confuse the crap out of people.
You on the other hand are keeping it real and easy to follow.
I’d say it was out of laziness – but you already stole that tagline 😉
Thanks mate – definitely something I will be implementing as soon as I finish my own product.
Great article. Many times IM forget to do this sort of thing to build their lists. It works great. By the way, would you mind shring what the giveaway PDF was.?
As allways from Dan sneaky smart tips. About Amazon marketing i think it could be a bit harder.
But if you rewrite the rewiev a bit it could work good. Or what do you think Dan?
Hey Dan,
Great technique! I have dabbled with this myself with some good results. I need to scale it up!
Thanks for reminding me about this!
Cheers,
Coby Wright
Hi, Dan, I got your earlier course on Deadbeat Super Affiliate . Have been working on it but not showing any result after 4 weeks already. My biggest problem is actually getting traffic to my site. I have no mailing list to direct my site to. Anyway, this might be something I have to do now, hopefully with this I am able to get a good mailing list, but what I dont understand is if nobody is going to my web site, than this will not work, right? I did a google search on my web site, and its not even showing up in the first 40 pages. So should I start doing this or only when my site is visible enough to be be effective.?
What’s a “high-quality freebie” and what steps do you take to circulate it? Do you have to be on Aweber to do this sort of thing-sounds like it.. For newbies it may be a stretch fro them to do all of that.
Hey Man
Thanks for sharing this great lead generating strategy 🙂
Hey Dan,
Nice one. I just chilled and watched TV today.
Best wishes everyone, Brian.
Hey, Dan, cool tip. I should do that more often myself. Have done it once, but not pushed it maybe as much as I should, especially as the giveaway (a quality squeeze page template plus instructions) is pretty good. As you rightly point out it’s all about subscribers believing in you because of the quality they pick up from you. Cheers, Nic Penrake
Dan as always you have done yet another informative and awesome post! While I have not done what you just described yet, I can say I have some articles, sites, facebook fan pages, etc. that are still making me money some of them are even blogger pages that I had totally forgot about until I see a sale here and there.
Once again awesome post!
Tim
Yes, viral pdf is great. We can use it for promoting our business and to promote other affiliate products. It is good to give away different pdf`s so you have more potential.
Wish all success!
Stefan
Hey Dan,
This was a really inspirational post man…
I actually have a pdf report with those features. You gave me tons
of good ideas…
Great post Dan.
I’m just wondering if this can be applied to non-info niches.
Like a great man once said, a link is better than no link but what you’ve outlined here seems a step beyond that.
Thanks for the info.
David
Hi Dan,
This is a great idea. It is what some people call ‘viral marketing’ isn’t it? I can see that it would keep on growing for a long time. People are watching for high quality freebies to pass on all the time.
Would you say that it is still worthwhile passing on your PDF at this point, or has it been around for so long that it has gotten over-exposed?
🙂 If you still think your PDF is as good as ever, I wouldn’t mind the chance to pass it on myself. I have yet to find something really good to give away to people 😉
If you don’t mind having more publicity – please share the PDF you were talking about here.
Thanks so much!
Never think for a moment that putting extra time into giving real value to your group isn’t worth it!
Learning more everyday,
Ruth M
good stuff Dan
what’s up with sharing the pdf
Keep it coming nice marketing points
It is amazing sometimes how we forget.
Good tactic Dan, this is Viral Marketing at its best!
You do the work once and let your free distribution force (Master Resale Rights Incentive) do the list-building for you. Many people still struggle to let go their good quality work go for free.
The simply do not have long term vision yet, unfortunately.
This can also expand even further from a PDF report or e-course. It can also be an audio like an interview with someone of authority in that niche, a webinar recording or a good made-video on the topic. As long as people find “Good Value Content” they will end up to your squeeze page and subscribe for more good stuff.
That is one of many strategies we teach at Affiliate Marketing E-course Institute, but as I said earlier it is somewhat difficult for someone new to accept this advice blindly and trust us that it works every time when done right.
I’m glad it works well for you too. Dan if your PDF has anything to do with IM I will gladly distribute it to my list – just email me asap.
@Anthonyblim – if you aren’t showing in the first 40 pages of google, you need to start backlinking. I don’t know what your sites look like, but you need to really backlink the hell out of each page or post. Five or six backlinks will not cut it – it may take dozens or hundreds. Write articles, leave blog comments, forum signatures – any place you can find to put a link out there. Do 40 or 50 backlinks for a post, then wait a week or so and see where it is. If it’s not where you want it, do it again. If you’ve got a KW that doesn’t have much competition, it might only take one round of backlinks like that to get you to #1. But backlinking is the key – any keyword can rank well if you do enough backlinking.
Cool post Dan… I’m sure a lot of readers have heard similar before but the difference here is that you’ve actually talked about results – not a hypothetical scenario.
So who wants to add a 1,000 new subscribers to their list?! : )
Totally awesome ideas. I just discovered you recently Dan via a friend Jarrett Stevenson but you’re quickly positioning yourself as someone with great information!
Look forward to future emails from you (Whoah, that’s rare lol)
Cheers,
James
This is a great tactics, I use it myself. You don’t even ned your own product – just find some great quality PLR stuff. Makes wonders 🙂
Dan, thanks for the solid advice. This post proves that you are not one of the gurus. You truly care about helping people.
All the best.
I love the way you teach. I’ve learned a lot from you and continue to learn new methods to market.
Good job!
Thank you!
Zita
Seems as though the how is really the easy part.Finding or making good free content that isn’t already saturating the market is the tricky part. But good reminder too at least try ! 😉