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Get Rich, Get Frozen (Wake Me Up In 2097)
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How To Sell 7 CPA Offers On 1 Landing Page
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Mad Men: Glorious Sleaze From The Sixties

Get Rich, Get Frozen (Wake Me Up In 2097)

I often get a headache when I think about where to invest my Internet Marketing dollars. I don’t want to be building websites forever. Besides, it’s only natural that the next generation will stumble across a medium even ‘newer’ than the Internet. And what happens then? We become dinosaurs, that’s what. Relics to the new youth.

So what’s the best way to invest for the future?

Should I buy stocks? Should I buy more websites? Maybe I should move strategically in to the world of real estate? You know what… screw that. Who needs a long term business when you can splash the cash on immortality?

By paying just $150,000, you can have your body cryogenically frozen in liquid nitrogen and [hopefully] brought back to life in the future. As soon as your heart stops beating, a team of cryogenic experts will descend upon your corpse and have you whisked away to one of many ‘life extension’ facilities. There, you will be stored at a temperature of below -120°C until some lunatic of the future is ready to thaw you out of your metal home.

I’m not making this shit up. Cryonics is a booming industry. Give it 20 years and Tesco will be selling the bloody thing as a gift experience for your loved ones on Christmas Day.

The great hope for cryonic customers is that science will advance to a point where terminal diseases are treatable; where immortality beckons for the rich. Before that, there’s the slightly more obvious matter of learning how to reverse the cryopreservation process.

There are a few popular myths to be debunked. Cryonics is not a ‘treatment for the dead’. It’s simply not feasible to plunge your spade in the nearest grave, weave a little Frankenstein magic, and revive the corpse as good as new. However, there have been many instances where humans have been pronounced dead, and later resuscitated.

The idea of future scientists being able to revive bodies that have been dead for days is a slap in the face to what’s known as the information-theoretic criterion for death – a term given for bodies where the cell structure and chemistry is so royally shagged that preservation would be a waste of time. ‘Real Death’, if you will.

In modern times, the lapse between a heart that no longer beats and medical death is restricted to a few minutes. Cryonics relies on this window of opportunity (what a morbid term) to immediately preserve the customer so that resuscitation can be resumed at a date in the very distant future.

Time is very much of the essence. If your corpse isn’t recovered swiftly, the shot at preservation is gone. If it’s reached in time, however, the body can be maintained indefinitely in the same state. Decades or even centuries may pass until its ready to be ‘recovered’, but the window of opportunity will still be there. The rest is down to science.

It’s a concept that reeks of science fiction, but one that is surging in popularity across the United States. Christ, just weeks ago, Larry King announced his intention to be frozen. Frankly, I was surprised that he hadn’t already undergone the procedure. Well, if it looks dead and sounds dead…

I find the idea of waking up in a different decade to be hugely intriguing. Maybe that’s because I’ve been watching too much Mad Men, but wouldn’t it be cool to refresh stats on a website you built over 50 years ago? Or is that thought too geeky? No doubt many Internet Marketers would still have zero commission to their name.

There is, of course, a religious debate to be had around this issue. Is it wrong to ‘play God’ where life and death are concerned? Honestly, I don’t have much time for the naysayers. In the last century, we’ve played God countless times in a bid to advance society through sophisticated drugs and better medical practice. We’ve been highly successful. Reversing the process of death is the final frontier, and it may not be as far fetched as it sounds.

If you’re interested, there’s one last dilemma to get your head around.

Neuropreservation vs. Whole Body Preservation

For a ‘budget’ option, you can opt for neuropreservation, which freezes only your head and is about $60,000 lighter on the wallet. Should you awaken in the next century, you will retain your sense of self, but should probably be prepared for some epic counseling that will make John Travolta’s problems in Face-Off seem like a breeze in the fucking park. That’s because your body will need to be ‘regrown’.

The deluxe plan does exactly what it says on the tin. Whole Body Preservation… or as I like to call it, the Austin Powers package. Be sure to embrace death with your best cheeky chappy pose. It’s going to be a long night, so you better give immortality that Kodak moment it deserves…

Cryonics Photo

Is this legitimately what being frozen in time looks like? Answers on a postcard, please. I’d have it written in to my contract that I must be displayed in a glass box by reception at all times, or next to the water cooler…

If you don’t have $150,000 to spare but do like the idea of living forever, fear not. There are life insurance policies that can be taken out for as little as $30/month, with the beneficiary going to your cryonics agency. These fund the entire cost of the procedure.

Most importantly, you must remember to die gracefully. Messy deaths are generally frowned upon. Mowing your car in to a tree trunk, for example, is pretty much just shooting yourself in the balls. Worse, arguably. I would hazard a guess that terms and conditions apply, so please do read them carefully.

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How To Sell 7 CPA Offers On 1 Landing Page

Three years ago, when I was still coming to terms with the good, the bad and the ugly in our industry, I had a brainsurge. I saw a campaign opportunity that would take upselling to the next level. It was perhaps the lowest I’ve stooped as an affiliate marketer, which coincided quite predictably with the best ROI I’ve seen to date.

The theme was simple.

I was to design a New Year’s Resolution flog. An epic landing page linking the most cited resolutions to some simple crazy tips, and a juicy affiliate offer that would cash in on each desire.

Find out how I achieved these seven CRAZY New Years Resolutions in 2009…

Written, of course, from the perspective of a frighteningly ordinary (and now incredibly successful) Every Joe Average. The flog took the seven most obvious New Year’s Resolutions and wove them in to a story of remarkable achievement. My character had been down on his luck at the end of 2008. He decided to turn his life around.

To do so, he set not one but seven New Year’s Resolutions.

1. To lose weight
2. To improve his income
3. To find love
4. To improve fitness
5. To quit smoking
6. To quit drinking
7. To learn something new

The flog explained how with the help of a few unusual tips (the more unusual the better, trust me) – and some relatively unknown products – he succeeded in making the last year the best of his life… the launch pad to enormous success. His resolution this year is to share the success story; to reveal to a select few the secret products that helped him, and of course, to spread a little festive cheer.

The beauty of New Year’s Resolutions is self-explanatory. They read like a list of bestselling affiliate offers. I didn’t find it difficult to match any of the resolutions to a suitable affiliate offer. If you’re wondering, ‘learn something new’ was crowbarred in to a pitch for the various Rocket Language packs on ClickWank.

I rarely speak too highly of ClickWank, but if there’s ever a time to push one of their links, it’s on the sixth upsell. Just don’t make a habit of it.

With a little tinkering, what I had on my hands was the grandaddy of all flogs – albeit one that would be profitable for only a short period of time. Pretty much all New Year’s Resolution traffic was fair game, since 90% of the users were going to associate themselves with at least one of the resolutions. It was the making of my wettest dreams, and the ROI was insane.

As the months have passed, I’ve become much more conservative; in all walks of life, but particularly where risque moneymaking schemes like this are concerned. I don’t wish to take the moral high ground – affiliates can choose to focus their businesses where they see fit. It’s none of my business. But I don’t plan to roll out a 2011 take on the New Year’s Resolution flog, which is why I’m happy to post about it.

I’m sure somebody reading this now will run wild with such a campaign on the Adsonars and Pulse360s of the world. But it doesn’t have to be scandalous. You don’t have to sling 7 different fragrances of the same bullshit in scumbag flogging style. You can use the New Year’s Resolution angle to improve just about any sales funnel.

Now is the perfect time to give your landing pages a face-lift with some hard selling copy; the type that appeals to the resolution setting nature of your users. It’s not hard to see how dating can be assaulted from a ‘make this a better year’ angle. The same for weight loss, bizopps and especially those offers related to going back to school.

I’ve always seen January 1st goal-setting as an exercise for the fickle minded. But from a marketing perspective, it’s a priceless window of opportunity. When else do you have large swaths of the population convincing themselves that it’s time to change? They’re doing half of our job for us!

Christ, it’s the only time in the year where the masses are searching for the shit we spend half our working hours trying to convince them they need!

Don’t miss out on the New Year’s Resolution madness. There’ll be plenty more opportunities to make your money, but rarely will they arrive gift-wrapped with a bow tie. This is the time to bank your Christmas bonus, seal the summer holiday and start 2012 with a bang.

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  • Make sure you grab a copy of Premium Posts Volume 3. Featuring over 75 pages of tips and techniques to help you dominate the dating niche, Volume 3 should give your campaigns a nice boost for 2012. Download a copy here.

  • I hope you all had an awesome Christmas. If I don’t post before the New Year (very likely given my unread emails), have an awesome blowout to 2011. And a profitable non-Apocalyptic 2012.

  • If you’re a new reader, please add me to your RSS. Also follow me on Twitter. Thanks for reading.

Mad Men: Glorious Sleaze From The Sixties

The last TV series that had me hooked was The Wire, which is widely regarded as one of the most badass pieces of entertainment ever committed to tape. It’s three years since I finished watching that show, and it’s taken until now for another to come along that would impress me in the same way.

Joan HollowayThat show is Mad Men; a sickly stylish throwback to the sleaze of Madison Avenue in the 1960s.

Mad Men centers around an advertising agency, Sterling & Cooper, in an era where smoking, drinking and public displays of chauvinism come as par for the course.

Don Draper is the man at the center of it all. He’s a creative genius, father of two and betrayer of many. Draper is the sort of fucked up anti-hero that our generation of young affiliates aspire to become. He bedazzles clients with the perfect blend of smooth talk and marketing intellect.

When we announce that we’re affiliate marketers to the world, he is the projected image in all of our heads. The figure of quiet authority who could sell a man his own moustache. Draper is painted in various shades of grey; a multi-layered character for the show to orbit around. He’s backed by an awesome and versatile supporting cast, including some of the sexiest women on television. I can’t deny it, there’s just something about the sixties.

Mad Men is a tour de force in persuasion tactics from an era gone-by, but it’s also much more. It’s an excellent cultural reference to the sixties – where sexism, racism and prejudice cast a decidedly negative light on the decade we now glorify for its hard partying and pop legacy.

The show starts with Draper in a headspin, trying to find a way to re-brand cigarettes. Recent revelations have linked smoking to cancer, and the FTC has its boot on the throat of any tobacco seller who begs to differ. I’m sure many affiliates will be sympathetic of the predicament, as will anybody who has ever had to deal with a stuck-in-the-old-ways client.

Here’s a great taster of the show. It should strike a chord with many in our industry:

Every scene is beautifully shot and the storylines are brought to the boil slowly in a manner that rewards attentive viewing. The story is often told through subtle nods rather than blowout cliffhangers. It’s certainly no Prison Break in that sense.

I loved The Wire for its glorification of the ordinary and the richness of the characters. No good was without fault, and no bad was totally irredeemable. The characters in Mad Men are portrayed in the same light; the detail hidden in brief flashes of dialogue that most shows simply wouldn’t trust the viewer to digest.

Admittedly, the show has a polarizing effect. I’ve spoken to people who couldn’t get in to it, despite working in advertising for much of their careers. I would call it a slow burner, but I think the writing is comfortably strong enough to justify the leisurely pacing. You’ll either love it… or you won’t.

Here’s a final shove. Watch the trailer, get your 60s on, and grab a slice of Mad Men. I highly recommend it!

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