"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people – working as a TEAM – can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has!"

Why You’re NOT Making Sales -
and What You Can DO About It!

For those of you that know me, you know that I am a "bottom-line" kinda guy. And the bottom line is this

"If you are doing WHAT you’re supposed to do, WHEN you’re supposed to do it, it is virtually impossible NOT to make sales for the "Secrets of the Big Dogs" ebook!"

How can I make such a definitive statement? Well, for two reasons. First of all, you should know that I, personally, used the tools and techniques that I’ve outlined in the ebook for nearly a year and I KNOW they work. Secondly, even though I have not had any free time to do any personal promoting and advertising for nearly three months, I STILL manage to generate at least one ebook sale every day! Where do these sales come from if I’m not doing any promoting? I’ll be covering that later on in this article. Right now, however, I want to cover the most common mistakes folks are making to NOT make any sales.

Major Mistake # 1:
Incorrect ClickBank hop-link

I know, I know, I’ve talked about this so often that I’m sure a lot of you are sick of my preaching about it. But, fellow dogs, this REMAINS as the single most common reason that some of you are not making sales!

A lot of you don’t seem to grasp the fact that computers are very "unforgiving" and stupid. Computers do ONLY what you SPECIFICALLY tell them to do – they don’t "guess" or assume anything. You must be very, VERY precise when using your hop-link.

The standard format, of course, for a hop-link to promote the Big Dogs sales site is:

http://hop.clickbank.net/hop.cgi?XXXXX/bigdogs

…..where, the "X’s" are naturally replaced with YOUR individual ClickBank nickname. (Note: If you have any doubts at all about your hop-link PLEASE read our article about it in our online training manual at http://bigdogtraining.20m.com)

Hop-link mistakes are so prevalent that when someone tells me that they are not getting any sales, the FIRST thing I ask them to do is to email me their hop-link. The response I get quite often is, "Oh, I KNOW I’m using the correct URL, but I’ll email it to you anyway." But HERE are just a few examples of the kind of stuff I get back:

http://hop.clickbank.net/hop.cgi?XXXXX/bigdog

http://hop.clickbank.com/hop.cgi?XXXXX/bigdogs

http:/hop.clickbank.net/hop.cgi?XXXXX/bigdogs

http://hop.clickbank.net/hop.cgiXXXXX/bigdogs

You SHOULD be able to spot the mistakes in the four examples above. They’re very simple, seemingly inconsequential, errors. But friends, playin’ with computers ain’t playin’ horseshoes – close don’t count! Your hop-link will just not work unless it’s P-E-R-F-E-C-T!

Major Mistake # 2:
Typing your hop-link instead of using "copy-and-paste"

First of all you should not be retyping your ads everytime you send them out. Not only is this absurdly time-consuming, but there is just too dog-gone much room for error.

For the CHIP programs that use a web-based mailing system, you should save your ad in a word document file, check for spelling errors, and be SURE to include your hop-link. Then, when you’re ready to send out your ad, simply copy and paste it from the word document into the Simple System mailer, or the AltraSearch mailer, etc.

For the CHIP programs that use a PC-based mailing system, you will of course be using your Aureate Group Mailer. You can copy and paste your ads from the word document into the "send" feature of your Group Mailer, OR…you can actually save each ad in a file in the Group Mailer itself.

Now, you SHOULD be using ROIbot tracking URL’s to track your advertising results, and once again, copy and paste – DON’T retype. For example, for one particular ad you may have ten different ROIbot URL’s, all of which, however, will lead to your same ClickBank hop-link.

But be careful!

I had one of our people call me in total and utter frustration because he wasn’t making any sales. He had tested his hop-link over and over – it was working just fine. When setting up his ROIbot tracking URL’s he did as he was supposed to do – he copied and pasted (as opposed to re-typing) his hop-link into each block on the ROIbot set-up page to generate multiple tracking URL’s. He carefully copied and pasted each different tracking URL into each ad in his multiple word documents, and then he copied and pasted each ad into the various mailers.

Nothing! No sales!

What did he do wrong? Well, he did everything right except for testing EACH ROIbot tracking URL, BEFORE he pasted them into his ads. In going back to ROIbot he found that when he originally copied and pasted his hop-link, he apparently did not run the cursor to the very end of the hop-link URL. In other words, the last two letters of "bigdogs" were cut off!

So…always copy and paste, and always test and RE-test your URL’s!

Major Mistake # 3:
Using the same ads over and over.

Since it’s official launch on March 24, the Big Dogs program has skyrocketed to be one of the Internet’s most successful affiliate programs. Still in it’s infancy, however, Big Dogs can hardly be said to have reached a point of saturation. There are a number of fine programs on the net that have been around for YEARS and are still doing very, very well.

BUT!…..

…..although PROGRAMS cannot become saturated, ADS can become saturated very, VERY quickly!  In the OFFline world, magazines are generally published monthly, and I’ve seen the same ads running in these publications for YEARS. But things move a lot more rapidly in the ONline world. On the Internet, ads essentially come out every DAY! Therefore you must constantly be changing your ads.

In chapter 10 of the "Secrets of the Big Dogs" ebook we give you just ONE example of a subject line and an ad. Why just one? Simply because we want you to be creative and formulate your own ads and subject lines.

For example, let’s say you open your email one day and you find the following ten subject lines relating to Big Dogs:

"Revealed! Secrets of the Big Dogs!"
"Revealed! Secrets of the Big Dogs!"
"Revealed! Secrets of the Big Dogs!"
"Revealed! Secrets of the Big Dogs!"
"Revealed! Secrets of the Big Dogs!"
"Revealed! Secrets of the Big Dogs!"
"Revealed! Secrets of the Big Dogs!"
"Revealed! Secrets of the Big Dogs!"
"Why is everybody joining the Big Dogs?"
"Revealed! Secrets of the Big Dogs!"

Which one do you think YOU would click on? Of course! The one that’s DIFFERENT from everyone else’s.

Want to know a GREAT source for an unlimited number of subject lines? Your "junk" email box! That’s right! Think about it – each day you receive thousands of return ads at your alternate email address. Instead of ignoring them and just deleting them, make it a habit of checking them every once in a while. You’ll get some terrific ideas for your OWN subject lines – all you have to do is pick the ones that appeal to YOU, and reconfigure them or reword them for your own purposes.

Major Mistake # 4:
NOT using all the tools at your disposal.

Each of the FFA networks that comprise the CHIP portfolio offers you TWO methods to get your sales message out.

The first, and the one everybody uses, are the harvested email address that each FFA network supplies to you and that you mail out to the next day, or several days later.

However, many of you are NOT using the second method and that is the autoresponder message that goes out automatically and immediately when someone posts an ad to the FFA networks. Now, these autoresponder ads are not nearly as effective as the ads you send out afterwards, but they DO produce results over the long haul!

At the top of this article, I stated that despite no longer having the time to personally promote Big Dogs, that I was still receiving one or more ebook sales each day. THIS is where my sales are coming from – the autoresponder messages and EmailPromoter – programs I haven’t touched for three months!

Yet another great source of traffic is (hold your hats on!) POSTING ads to FFANET!

Surprised? After all, we’ve tried to impress upon you the concept of "host, don’t post," and that posting ads to the FFA networks is a waste of time because no one sees them. Well, that is entirely correct – with ONE major exception – good ol’ FFANET. In my several months of promoting using the CHIP programs, the ONLY network that I found that produces results when posting an ad is FFANET!

Why this is so, I can’t say for sure. It may be because FFANET is just so dog gone big (roughly five times larger than the next largest). It may be because Pro-Member ads are configured to stand out from the ads that are posted using submission software. It may be because FFANET members actually DO check their own sites from time to time to "see what’s going on" on the Internet, and, as a result, see your ads. It may be because of FFANET’s email address verification system. And it just may be a combination of all of these factors. But for whatever reason, you should take the extra few minutes and POST YOUR AD TO THE FFANET NETWORK EACH DAY from your ProMember site.

It WILL give you results!

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