Wizzer

I live near to a number of country lanes and my favourite driving – fast, winding roads at night using full beam in a small car – is readily accessible.

One of the best cars I’ve owned in recent years for that kind of driving is a Mini Cooper S. The engine is so flexible and the feeling of speed exaggerated due to the closeness to the ground.

Shame the lease ran out!

I’m not new to internet marketing nor am I “green” when it comes to all of the bonuses and incentives offered everywhere to entice us to sign-up to opt-in lists of buy from a particular affiliate link.

On the basis I believe you can never know it all and as the internet and marketing methods are in a constant state of change I do regularly look at and buy various new programs that catch my eye.

But today, despite my experience I wasted a whole morning before I gave myself a good talking to and put a stop to what I was doing…

You see I signed up for a “free” program a few weeks ago (which one is not important) and finally got round to looking at the membership area this morning.

Coincidentally, I also received an email from the affiliate whose link I used telling me about the bonus package I was entitled to.

As background, this particular sign up page had about 4 One Time Offers all of which I quickly bypassed and went straight to the “free” members area. In fact, if I remember correctly there was a monthly payment deferred for a month.

Anyway, as I didn’t have time to view all of the goodies the day I joined I took a look this morning. And looked at the affiliates bonus package…

It was like Aladin’s Cave or Pandora’s Box depending on your viewpoint!

There was so much information, and so many “bonuses” I was immediately confused as to what was free and what was part of the ongoing membership (if I chose to continue it).

The email from the affiliate contained more links and discount vouchers and after about 1/2 hour of looking at all the goodies I’d lost the will to live!

Good, bad or indifferent I have no idea. There was simply too much information, far too many “bonuses” all supposed to help my business. I was seeing continuity programs and download pages – I got about 5 more autoresponder messages telling me about even more bonuses and free sites etc.

All pushed to help me and my business. Or was it a way to put more offers in front of me – some I simply had to have or the price would go up. Great marketing techniques perhaps but for me they achieved just one thing and one thing only…

“OVERLOAD”

Is it by design – too much information and nobody takes action. Result – buy more in the future?

That’s the cynic in me. But the reality is, I as a seasoned on-liner and still found all of the information too much. And I know what I am looking for. Confusion reigned and for someone just starting out this really would be far too much.

I decided there and then to close the programs, cancel any ongoing memberships and unsubscribe from the lists.

Outcome

I learned nothing new.

I wasted a morning.

The affiliate got nothing.

The program owner got nothing

I unsubscribed from all of their lists

I won’t be interested in anything they have to say in the future

Lessons Learned

Too many conflicting (even complimentary bonuses) actually detract from the real offer

As a marketer be wary of what you offer

As a consumer be careful what you take up. Make sure it’s what you need and not just a glitzy shiny package you’ll do nothing with

It’s very easy to lose a customer before he / she becomes one

Don’t jump on the bandwagon of thinking that the top online marketers get it right all of the time

Conclusions

I’m sure they’d argue that a few people like me falling by the wayside is unimportant as long as they get the sales to the big numbers BUT I’d contend that one unhappy customer is one too many.

So whether you are a marketer or consumer or both, those big bonus packages, one time offers and upgrades may well be killing your business – or they will if you have other customers like me!

I honestly believe simple and straightforward is best. It may not generate as many sales but it will certainly help customers better to have information served up when needed in a simple to follow format.

You know where most of the bonuses I’ve accumulated over the past few years are right now? Either in the Recycle Bin or lost somewhere on the hard drive – long forgotten and probably long past their “sell by” date.

What do you think? Let me know by leaving a comment below.

Watch out for my forthcoming article – following today’s events I decided it is long overdue:

The 6 Biggest Mistakes Made By New Online Marketers

I’ll post here when it’s ready – sign up to my RSS or email feed in the Header above or the link immediately below this post & I’ll let you know when it’s done.

I was doing my usual Stumbling Upon earlier in the week and found a great site run by Jonathan Boettcher and one particular post I found really exciting.

Jonathan has created a brilliant Word Press plugin called URL Rotator

It is simple to install and just as easy to use.

Essentially it creates one link using your blog’s domain and can be used to mask affiliate links.

So instead of an obvious Clickbank affiliate link, for example, you could have “yoursite.com/trynow” or whatever suffix you require. Or as I’ve done below just make a clickable image and the rotator will work behind the picture.

But it is so very much more than a link cloaker. You can create just one link with numerous links sitting behind it that will be rotated at every click.

See Wizzer’s Lucky Dip below.

The more I thought about it the more fun concepts and uses that came to mind.

Introducing: -

Wizzer’s Lucky Dip

I have five Membership Sites that normally cost $27 each to join. I sometimes offer Free Silver Membership as an incentive and I thought it would be fun to start a lucky dip using the URL Rotator plugin.

I created the link inside the URL Rotator plugin (see video below which highlights how easy that was) and then after uploading the button below to the post just added the link to the image.

Now whenever anyone clicks the button they will be taken to ONE of the FIVE Membership Sites Registration Pages.

The five sites cover:

• Email Marketing
• Making Money On The Internet
• Mindset
• Traffic Generation
• Making Money As An Affiliate

Go on, give it a try. Click the button and see which one you get. Each one is totally free to join and there really is some great information and video & audio tutorials on some very important subjects.

Tip If you come back and click the link again you’ll get Free Access to each of the sites in turn!

You can download your own copy of the URL Rotator Plugin here.

But be quick, Jonathan has said he’s considering making a charge for it in the future.

Here’s my video showing how easy it is to install and create your first link.

If you like this please share this page on your Social Sites to get the word out. Thanks

Wizzer