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Make Money Online From Home – Amazon Associates Quick Guide
A lot of people have just lost their jobs. (We’re in the middle of social isolation because of COVID-19 right now.) And I’m aware the NOBODY is invulnerable. So I want to start doing what I should have done a LOOOONG time ago. I learned about affiliate marketing almost 7 years ago. Do you think I did anything about it then? NOPE. Shame on me. But here I am, finally getting some affiliate marketing going. Hopefully it’s not too late. Time will tell. So what is affiliate marketing? I market someone else’s product and collect a commission for it. There are a thousand ways to do this, but the easiest…
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Meet Andrew & Andy. They’re Helping Hamilton Love Jesus.
These two men are Christian leaders in Hamilton, helping people connect with God (Andrew on the left, Andy on the Right). Both are doing simple, but fun things to bring believers together, train them in spiritual disciplines, create spaces for worship, and build up the church in Hamilton. And both men are just getting started, although they’ve been working for a while now.
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Gritty Faith
Why are most Christian magazines so cheesy? In the process of writing a profile about a local Christian leader, Jade was helping me look for Christian magazines that might run the article. She messaged me while at work about how cheesy it all was. I usually try to defend Christian media, but there’s no defense for this. Christian media is typically cliche, predictable, buried in fluff, and straight up cringe worthy. Am I wrong?
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When Waiting Looks Like Working
If there was a test at the end of this life-course, I’ve failed. “Waiting” and “Rest” were repeated themes over the past few months. In the time that I was given to rest and “learn of Jesus,” selfish ambition and weeds of worldly worries strangled my peace.
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Lift Off #19 – Evident Desire
Podcast Notes: “The offer was flattering, not humiliating. It showed sympathy and understanding. The evident desire was to serve.” – Claude Hopkins, My Life in Advertising Don’t you find it easy to tell when a company’s advertising is self serving? Even though advertising is self serving by nature, we are put off by it. We want our needs met. We aren’t always concerned with meeting the needs of the people we buy from.
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Lift Off #18 – Testing is Better Than Guessing
Podcast Notes: “Perhaps one time in fifty, a guess might be right. But fifty times in fifty an actual test tells you what to do and avoid.” – Claude Hopkins, My Life in Advertising. Claude talks a lot about the guess work that brands do with their advertising. He scorns the typical, “by our brand and not theirs” message. He strongly advocates testing advertising ideas out on smaller markets before spending too much money on one tactic. In the digital world, this is so easy to do. A/B testing headlines, web pages, landing pages, email subject lines, calls to action and PPC ad copy is built into most services. You…
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Lift Off #17 – Reciprocity, Generosity, and Greed
Podcast Notes: There’s a weird truth about greed. The more someone consumes the resources you produce, the more they feel they owe you a little. You can feed greed by promising more money, more popularity, and greater status, but the real power of greed is when you are generous.
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Lift Off #16 – Public Relations
Podcast Notes: Public Relations is a different discipline than advertising but it’s not separate. Organizations distribute PR material to news editors in hopes of free publicity. When your business releases a new product, service, achieves some milestone, or significantly impacts the community, it can be delivered as a news story. If your material is picked up by an editor, your story and brand are put in front of the editor’s audience. It can be good marketing. Bob Bly, a well known copywriter in marketing circles, writes about a simple PR tactic that drew attention from a major New Jersey newspaper. Bob writes in his book, “The Copywriter’s Handbook,” about his…
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Lift Off #15 – Create a Universe
Podcast Notes: Rocketship.fm is a podcast for starups. They do weekly interviews with successful startups and ask the questions that new entrepreneurs are brooding over. They published a book called “Plan Twice. Build Once.” It’s a collection of 100 quotes from entrepreneurs they’ve interviewed. The quotes are action focused and motivational in nature. They are essentially monetizing their podcast. But it got me thinking about reversing their process. Write a book, the produce a podcast to promote it. You could also build a blog, record videos, create attractive graphics, or develop a free web tool (although that would be a tad pricey). The point is, marketing is media heavy. Always…
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Lift Off #14 – Native Advertising
Podcast Notes: As of 2012, banner ad clickthrough rate was 0.2%. So unless you can afford to put your ad in front of millions of people, display ads are becoming quite inefficient. What’s the answer? Well, there’s more than one option, but right now I want to talk about native advertising. The simplest definition of native advertising is “sponsored content that fits the usual content flow.” It’s a more commercial form of content marketing. An article, a Buzzfeed quiz, an embedded video, infographic, or any content that is commissioned by a company. It reads, looks, and feels like any other blog post or infographic you read or see, but it…