1000 True Fans-

1,000 True Fans

The long tail is famously good news for two classes of people; a few lucky aggregators, such as Amazon and Netflix, and 6 billion consumers. Of those two, I think consumers earn the greater reward from the wealth hidden in infinite niches.

But the long tail is a decidedly mixed blessing for creators. Individual artists, producers, inventors and makers are overlooked in the equation. The long tail does not raise the sales of creators much, but it does add massive competition and endless downward pressure on prices. Unless artists become a large aggregator of other artist's works, the long tail offers no path out of the quiet doldrums of minuscule sales.

Other than aim for a blockbuster hit, what can an artist do to escape the long tail?
One solution is to find 1,000 True Fans. While some artists have discovered this path without calling it that, I think it is worth trying to formalize. The gist of 1,000 True Fans can be stated simply:

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

To raise your sales out of the flatline of the long tail you need to connect with your True Fans directly.  Another way to state this is, you need to convert a thousand Lesser Fans into a thousand True Fans.

Assume conservatively that your True Fans will each spend one day's wages per year in support of what you do. That "one-day-wage" is an average, because of course your truest fans will spend a lot more than that.  Let's peg that per diem each True Fan spends at $100 per year. If you have 1,000 fans that sums up to $100,000 per year, which minus some modest expenses, is a living for most folks.

One thousand is a feasible number. You could count to 1,000. If you added one fan a day, it would take only three years. True Fanship is doable. Pleasing a True Fan is pleasurable, and invigorating. It rewards the artist to remain true, to focus on the unique aspects of their work, the qualities that True Fans appreciate.

The key challenge is that you have to maintain direct contact with your 1,000 True Fans. They are giving you their support directly. Maybe they come to your house concerts, or they are buying your DVDs from your website, or they order your prints from Pictopia. As much as possible you retain the full amount of their support. You also benefit from the direct feedback and love.
The technologies of connection and small-time manufacturing make this circle possible. Blogs and RSS feeds trickle out news, and upcoming appearances or new works. Web sites host galleries of your past work, archives of biographical information, and catalogs of paraphernalia. Diskmakers, Blurb, rapid prototyping shops, Myspace, Facebook, and the entire digital domain all conspire to make duplication and dissemination in small quantities fast, cheap and easy. You don't need a million fans to justify producing something new. A mere one thousand is sufficient.

This small circle of diehard fans, which can provide you with a living, is surrounded by concentric circles of Lesser Fans. These folks will not purchase everything you do, and may not seek out direct contact, but they will buy much of what you produce. The processes you develop to feed your True Fans will also nurture Lesser Fans. As you acquire new True Fans, you can also add many more Lesser Fans. If you keep going, you may indeed end up with millions of fans and reach a hit. I don't know of any creator who is not interested in having a million fans.
But the point of this strategy is to say that you don't need a hit to survive.  You don't need to aim for the short head of best-sellerdom to escape the long tail. There is a place in the middle, that is not very far away from the tail, where you can at least make a living. That mid-way haven is called 1,000 True Fans. It is an alternate destination for an artist to aim for.

Young artists starting out in this digitally mediated world have another path other than stardom, a path made possible by the very technology that creates the long tail. Instead of trying to reach the narrow and unlikely peaks of platinum hits, bestseller blockbusters, and celebrity status, they can aim for direct connection with 1,000 True Fans. It's a much saner destination to hope for. You make a living instead of a fortune. You are surrounded not by fad and fashionable infatuation, but by True Fans. And you are much more likely to actually arrive there.

A few caveats. This formula - one thousand direct True Fans --  is crafted for one person, the solo artist. What happens in a duet, or quartet, or movie crew? Obviously, you'll need more fans. But the additional fans you'll need are in direct geometric proportion to the increase of your creative group. In other words, if you increase your group size by 33%, you need add only 33% more fans. This linear growth is in contrast to the exponential growth by which many things in the digital domain inflate. I would not be surprised to find that the value of your True Fans network follows the standard network effects rule, and increases as the square of the number of Fans. As your True Fans connect with each other, they will more readily increase their average spending on your works. So while increasing the numbers of artists involved in creation increases the number of True Fans needed, the increase does not explode, but rises gently and in proportion.

A more important caution: Not every artist is cut out, or willing, to be a nurturer of fans. Many musicians just want to play music, or photographers just want to shoot, or painters paint, and they temperamentally don't want to deal with fans, especially True Fans. For these creatives, they need a mediator, a manager, a handler, an agent, a galleryist -- someone to manage their fans.  Nonetheless, they can still aim for the same middle destination of 1,000 True Fans. They are just working in a duet.

Third distinction. Direct fans are best. The number of True Fans needed to make a living indirectly inflates fast, but not infinitely. Take blogging as an example. Because fan support for a blogger routes through advertising clicks (except in the occasional tip-jar), more fans are needed for a blogger to make a living. But while this moves the destination towards the left on the long tail curve, it is still far short of blockbuster territory. Same is true in book publishing. When you have corporations involved in taking the majority of the revenue for your work, then it takes many times more True Fans to support you. To the degree an author cultivates direct contact with his/her fans, the smaller the number needed.

Lastly, the actual number may vary depending on the media. Maybe it is 500 True Fans for a painter and 5,000 True Fans for a videomaker. The numbers must surely vary around the world. But in fact the actual number is not critical, because it cannot be determined except by attempting it. Once you are in that mode, the actual number will become evident. That will be the True Fan number that works for you. My formula may be off by an order of magnitude, but even so, its far less than a million.

I've been scouring the literature for any references to the True Fan number. Suck.com co-founder Carl Steadman had theory about microcelebrities. By his count, a microcelebrity was someone famous to 1,500 people. So those fifteen hundred would rave about you. As quoted by Danny O'Brien, "One person in every town in Britain likes your dumb online comic. That's enough to keep you in beers (or T-shirt sales) all year."

Others call this microcelebrity support micro-patronage, or distributed patronage.
In 1999 John Kelsey and Bruce Schneier published a model for this in First Monday, an online journal. They called it the Street Performer Protocol.

Using the logic of a street performer, the author goes directly to the readers before the book is published; perhaps even before the book is written. The author bypasses the publisher and makes a public statement on the order of: "When I get $100,000 in donations, I will release the next novel in this series."

Readers can go to the author's Web site, see how much money has already been donated, and donate money to the cause of getting his novel out. Note that the author doesn't care who pays to get the next chapter out; nor does he care how many people read the book that didn't pay for it. He just cares that his $100,000 pot gets filled. When it does, he publishes the next book. In this case "publish" simply means "make available," not "bind and distribute through bookstores." The book is made available, free of charge, to everyone: those who paid for it and those who did not.

In 2004 author Lawrence Watt-Evans used this model to publish his newest novel. He asked his True Fans to collectively pay $100 per month. When he got $100 he posted the next chapter of the novel. The entire book was published online for his True Fans, and then later in paper for all his fans. He is now writing a second novel this way. He gets by on an estimated 200 True Fans because he also publishes in the traditional manner -- with advances from a publisher supported by thousands of Lesser Fans.  Other authors who use fans to directly support their work are Diane Duane, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, and Don Sakers. Game designer Greg Stolze employed a similar True Fan model to launch two pre-financed games. Fifty of his True Fans contributed seed money for his development costs.

The genius of the True Fan model is that the fans are able to move an artist away from the edges of the long tail to a degree larger than their numbers indicate. They can do this in three ways: by purchasing more per person, by spending directly so the creator keeps more per sale, and by enabling new models of support.

New models of support include micro-patronage. Another model is pre-financing the startup costs. Digital technology enables this fan support to take many shapes. Fundable is a web-based enterprise which allows anyone to raise a fixed amount of money for a project, while reassuring the backers the project will happen. Fundable withholds the money until the full amount is collected. They return the money if the minimum is not reached.

Here's an example from Fundable's site;

Amelia, a twenty-year-old classical soprano singer, pre-sold her first CD before entering a recording studio. "If I get $400 in pre-orders, I will be able to afford the rest [of the studio costs]," she told potential contributors. Fundable's all-or-nothing model ensured that none of her customers would lose money if she fell short of her goal. Amelia sold over $940 in albums.

A thousand dollars won't keep even a starving artist alive long, but with serious attention, a dedicated artist can do better with their True Fans. Jill Sobule, a musician who has nurtured a sizable following over many years of touring and recording, is doing well relying on her True Fans. Recently she decided to go to her fans to finance the $75,000 professional recording fees she needed for her next album. She has raised close to $50,000 so far. By directly supporting her via their patronage, the fans gain intimacy with their artist. According to the Associated Press:

Contributors can choose a level of pledges ranging from the $10 "unpolished rock," which earns them a free digital download of her disc when it's made, to the $10,000 "weapons-grade plutonium level," where she promises "you get to come and sing on my CD. Don't worry if you can't sing - we can fix that on our end." For a $5,000 contribution, Sobule said she'll perform a concert in the donor's house. The lower levels are more popular, where donors can earn things like an advanced copy of the CD, a mention in the liner notes and a T-shirt identifying them as a "junior executive producer" of the CD.

The usual alternative to making a living based on True Fans is poverty.  A study as recently as 1995 showed that the accepted price of being an artist was large. Sociologist Ruth Towse surveyed artists in Britian and determined that on average they earned below poverty subsistence levels.

I am suggesting there is a home for creatives in between poverty and stardom. Somewhere lower than stratospheric bestsellerdom, but higher than the obscurity of the long tail. I don't know the actual true number, but I think a dedicated artist could cultivate 1,000 True Fans, and by their direct support using new technology, make an honest living.  I'd love to hear from anyone who might have settled on such a path.

What is a Marketing Funnel? | Why You Should Have A Marketing Funnel

by Rich Miller ·

Welcome Googler! If you find this page useful, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

What is a marketing funnel? That might be a foreign question to you if you are new to online marketing, but don’t lose heart I will explain it. A marketing funnel is one of the critical keys to building a successful business and your Freedom.  Read this entire article so that you can learn more about what is needed to get your marketing funnel up and running!

What is a Marketing Funnel?

For those of you who don’t know what a marketing funnel is, let’s get to it. Think about what a funnel really is. You might think of a tornado first, that takes you by storm, and you might think about things that get sucked in fast and either continue on or get spit out.
This is the same principle as a marketing funnel that you would use to build your business. There are normally a few steps in the Sales Funnel process simply because once you capture your targeted customer you want to accomplish some critical steps to get them through your funnel. Designing your own Marketing Funnel can be technically challenging, especially if you are new to marketing and don’t have the technical skills.

Designing A Marketing Funnel

In designing a good marketing funnel system there are many psychological factors that are considered when designing the process that your Lead will follow. Dialing in a good funnel that converts can be very time consuming and costly if you’re just learning the basics. Because of the time involved in learning, testing its usually best to use a system like MLSP that already has a marketing funnel that is already tested and ready to go.

Floating Through the Marketing Funnel

There are many phases of a funnel including the initial phase of discovery like. That could be a magazine ad, internet search or an online paid ad that attracted the lead to the first stage of your marketing funnel. Some refer to this as a trigger, but call it what you want, it got their attention!
If you did your job correctly, you have peaked the leads interest in your offer / product and you take them to your squeeze page where you deliver enough information so that your lead wants to know more, this is the most important step of the funnel as you now are capturing their contact information.  That Lead then gets added to a database that you own, most people use Aweber or GVO for that purpose.
Normally the next step in your marketing funnel is exposing your new Lead to your product or service.  This is what we call the exploration stage; or rather they are discovering what it is that you have to offer. Makes sense right?  This is the point that your lead can decide which path they wish to take, they may make the purchase at that time or not, but don’t worry it’s not over yet!

What Happens to The Leads In A Marketing Funnel?

Heres where the design of your funnel pays off, sometimes resulting in thousands of dollars of recurring sales. Many people get disappointed when they don’t initially convert a lead to sale, but thats ok!
A VERY important part of your marketing funnel is the follow up sequence that you have built into your sales funnel. This is where your emails start working for you on autopilot and build relationships with your subscribers. Sometimes it takes 10+ exposures to your offer before someone makes that buying decision.

As you can see there are a lot of moving part to a successful marketing funnel. I have built many marketing funnels, but to be honest with you I prefer to focus on getting traffic and let someone else do the heavy lifting for me. That’s why I have used the marketing funnels that have been designed and tested by some of the best internet marketers in MLSP.
 Take a test drive of the same powerful marketing tools I use and you can use to make a new life and a new business with new results? CLICK HERE and  get immediate access to the same Marketing Funnel System I use.
 Wishing You Great Success! 

Increasing Subscribers

How I Gained Over 1,000% New Subscribers Per Month June 5, 2011 Posted by Tyler Cruz click here Paid Advertisement Late last year, I started noticing that more and more bloggers in the make money online niche were using lightbox pop-ups to encourage their visitors to sign up to their mailing list. Since I was only averaging between 1-2 new signups a month to my own blog’s mailing list, I thought that I would try this method myself. I did a bit of research to see what the most popular and reputable software that people were using for this, and discovered that it was Popup Domination. The claims and testimonials on the sales page seemed too good to be true and rather extraordinary, but then again I had been seeing it used on a lot of big blogs (actually, almost all the big blogs), so I decided it would be worth trying. And so, on January 1st, 2011, I installed it on my blog to test it out. The Results The reason I waited so long to post this review was because I wanted to see the long-term effects of Popup Domination. I didn’t want to post a rave review about it after a month, only to see things dwindle shortly after. And so, I have a full 5 months of data to show you. I’ll get straight to the results. The best, and simplest way, is to show you the monthly new signup stats from my AWeber account on my blog’s list: 67 From the chart and stats, it’s obvious when I added Popup Domination to my blog. The red arrows are really unnecessary :-) As you can see, the moment I added it to my blog, my signups skyrocketed. I went from averaging 1.5 new signups a month to 17, which works out to an increase of 1,033%! I should also mention that this is without giving away anything for free. I basically just invite users to subscribe to my free newsletter to stay updated with my posts and other news and offers. Unlike almost every other blogger who uses this, I’m not offering a free e-Book or access to anything special. Just as impressive is the fact that these numbers have stayed consistent ever since adding Popup Domination to my blog. I didn’t see 1 or 2 good months and then a decline – it has been completely steady. Even though my actual numbers are very small and not very impressive, the fact still remains that I dramatically increased my new signup rate by installing this software. And from everyone that I’ve spoken to who uses this, they absolutely love it and have seen results similar to mine. Features I won’t bog you guys down with all the details of the features of the software like I normally do, but I still wanted to briefly describe some of them. First, it’s extremely fast and simple to both set up and customize, for both the WordPress and standalone versions (I installed the standalone version on my RobotWarz site). Below is what I customized mine to look like, which did not take long to do at all since there are a surprising number of nice premade templates to choose from: 66 Secondly, you have great control over how often the lightbox appears and on what pages it appears. For example, I have mine set up to only display once every 7 days for visitors, but I could change that to once a day, or once a month if I wanted to. I could even change it to display after the visitor has made X amount of views on my website. Here’s a quick rundown of its features: WordPress Plugin & Stand Alone Version 8 Beautiful themes with 15 Colour Options Works with ALL mailing list providers Works with all caching software Select specific pages for it to appear Exit Pop-up functionality Ability to pop up after a certain number of impressions The Price I can’t remember for sure, but I could almost swear that when I got mine, the price was $77. But I just checked the price, and it appears to be $47 right now. Even at $150 though, it’s still well worth the price if you want to dramatically increase your mailing list subscriber rate. The software just works, plain and simple. At least, it did for me. It also comes with a 60-day money back guarantee, so you really have nothing to lose, but a lot to gain. If you do get it, be sure to leave a comment here with your own review after letting it run for a little while.

Affiliate Marketing Resources

Recommended Resources Below is a list of some of the various ad networks, online services, and software tools that I personally use and recommend. I made this resource section on my blog to share these valuable resources with you, as well as to help lessen the amount of e-mails I get requesting to know who designed my logo or what specific tools and services I use for this and that. I do use other resources from the ones listed below, but these are my favourite and the ones that I can highly recommend. This page is fairly long, so below are the topics in case you are looking for a specific type of source: Affiliate Networks Ad Networks Affiliate Marketing Tools & Services Paid Traffic Sources Blogging Tools Graphic Design Programming Outsourcing Websites SEO Tools E-mail List Management Web Hosting Domain Registrars Buying & Selling Domains and Websites Social Media Tools & Services [Last revised and updated: May 24th, 2013] Affiliate Networks (CPA) PeerFly – I’ve been working with PeerFly since they launched and can’t recommend them enough. They are an awesome affiliate network that has a fantastic custom-made backend, the highest payouts anywhere (guaranteed), and great customer support. Read this post to see photos and a video from when I met up with them in person in Florida. AmpedMedia – AmpedMedia is another good solid affiliate network that I use. They have never failed to send me a Christmas card every year, hand-signed by their entire staff. Read this post to see photos and a video from when I met up with them in person in Florida. Neverblue – Neverblue is an established network in the industry, being in business since 2004 (a long time for an affiliate network). They are a very solid network with a great custom backend, good payouts, and a nice balanced selection of offers. Neverblue is definitely a network you want to add to your "portfolio". Ad Networks (CPC/CPM) Casale Media – I have been using Casale Media for over 5 years, since 2006. They pay out 70%, have a good advertiser base, a great control panel, and a referral program which pays out for life. Tribal Fusion – Tribal Fusion is a fantastic ad network for high volume sites due to the high quality publishers they attract. By requiring their publishers to have high quality, large traffic sites, they are able to attract big brand advertisers and in turn offer very high payouts. However, you will need to have a minimum of 500,000 unique visitors a month in order to be accepted. I’d highly recommend them if you can get accepted into them. Affiliate Marketing Tools & Services CPVLab – If I could only choose ONE affiliate marketing program or service to use, it’d be CPVLab, no question. I simply cannot recommend this tracking software enough. It is not free, and costs a one-time fee of $297, but it is worth every damn penny! In fact, it could be priced at $2,977 and still be worth every damn penny. I now use CPVLab on all of my campaigns and it has saved me countless hours of analysis, as well as helped me make a lot of money. The main features that make CPVLab stand out from other tracking platforms is its blazing speed, extremely clean and easy-to-use interface and design, and built-in features such as landing and offer split-testing. Honestly, if you’re doing affiliate marketing (or any type of traffic analysis), you need to get CPVLab now. You’re welcome. Prosper202 – Prosper202 is a 100% free self-hosted tracking software that you install and set up on your server. Prosper202 is well known in the affiliate marketing world as it was really the first tracking platform developed specifically for the affiliate marketing community. Talk to any super affiliate, and chances are they are either using Prosper202 now, or have in the past. It is simply the best free affiliate tracking platform out there, hands down. GeoEdge – GeoEdge is a proxy service that allows you to surf the web as if you were coming from another country (it currently offers 80+ countries plus 25 major US cities). It works with Flash, videos, rich media – basically everything. In addition to being extremely useful for affiliate marketers (no more "This offer is not available in your location" landing pages), it is also an extremely useful service to view country-specific ads. I use their browser add-on nearly everyday when working on my campaigns. For me, it is a must-have tool as an affiliate marketer who promotes international offers. It is also essential for me since I am a Canadian and many offers are US-only and will geo-redirect based on my IP. GeoEdge is also perfect for mobile advertisers as it has a mobile emulator tool. StackThatMoney – StackThatMoney is a private affiliate marketing forum that costs a monthly subscription fee of $99/month. While not free, it is worth every penny and will pay for itself many times over. For example, last week, I was browsing the forums when I discovered a small network I never heard about before. The first campaign I ran with the network was profitable right off the bat with no optimization or targeting. It’s little gems like these that easily justify the subscription fee. Whether you’re a newcomer struggling to find your first profitable campaign, or an experienced affiliate marketer who is making 6-figures a month, StackThatMoney will have something for you. If you’re serious about affiliate marketing, I highly recommend joining. IMGrind – A lot of people ask me how to get started in affiliate marketing and learn the industry. Well, here’s a great resource for that. IMGrind is a paid, private training forum for affiliate marketers. It is run by super affiliates Ralph "Ruck" Ruckman and Ryan Gray, two guys who are extremely well known in the industry. While Ryan and Ruck are active on the forum and will definitely help you out, the real beauty of the forum is that it consists of hundreds of other experienced affiliates and super affiliates. As a result, you are learning a hell of a lot more; it is not just 2 guys you are learning from, it is hundreds of successful affiliates. Some of the biggest guys in the industry are members there, and it is up to you how you decide to interact. You could be a "fly on the wall" and just sit back and read all the valuable information, or you could be an active member and participate and engage in discussion and ask questions. If you really want to learn, you’ll do both. For a more information, be sure to check out my review. CrazyCTR – CrazyCTR is a paid service that allows you to instantly make countless variations of your ad images so that you can focus on actually split-testing the ads instead of spending all of your time creating the images manually. Be sure to check out the review I wrote about them which includes a 17-minute screencast video. Also, enter the coupon code: TYLERCRUZ to receive 20% off your subscription price for LIFE. SocialAdNinja – If you use Facebook as a traffic source for affiliate marketing, then you should definitely look into trying SocialAdNinja. SocialAdNinja is a Facebook ad spy service that gathers and harvests ads from Facebook and allows you to browse and search through nearly half a million (and growing) ads. Basically, it allows you to spy on your competition and copy their ads and/or ideas. Check out the review I wrote about them which includes a very detailed 33-minute screencast video. In addition, use the promo code: TYLERCRUZ when signing up to get 15% off your monthly subscription for life. Paid Traffic Sources Google AdWords – AdWords has been extremely heavy handed on affiliate advertisers over the past few years – so much so, that most affiliates will scoff upon the sheer mention of their name. And while seemingly random bannings do still happen, as long as you’re not promoting anything super shady, you should be okay. AdWords is great because you can target people who you know are interested in your ad because they are proactively searching for it. The content network is also a fantastic source, as Google has amassed a huge publisher base over the years, allowing for seemingly endless traffic. Facebook – A lot of people have turned away from Facebook over the past couple of years, because just like Google AdWords, competition quickly grew and made it rather expensive to use. But if you stick with it and can get the hang of it, Facebook offers some of the best targeting out there, and a never-ending supply of traffic that you can scale upwards forever. Blogging Tools WordPress – I use the free blogging software WordPress for my blog. WordPress is great because it’s a free open-source software which is heavily supported by developers offering free plugins. WordPress releases new versions with new features and improvements regularly, and is theme-based meaning you can easily customize your own theme or download one of the thousands of free themes available. There are also countless plugins available to extend functionality as well. Windows Live Writer – I actually don’t use WordPress to write, edit, or publish my blog posts. Instead, I use the free blogging editor software Windows Live Writer (made by Microsoft). I always find formatting posts within WordPress to be a real pain which is why I started using WLW. In addition, WLW has a plethora of features and tools including: built-in image cropping and watermarking, spell-checking, auto-linking, word count, and tabs for easy view switching. WLW also works with a number of different blogging platforms including WordPress, Blogger, Live Journal, and TypePad to name a few. Graphic Design SOSFactory – Sergio from SOSFactory is the talent behind my mascot, and has done a number of variations of them for me now. Without hyperbole, I can confidently say that Sergio is a world-class artist, especially when it comes to mascots. He charges around $600 per logo, and while that may sound expensive, it’s really not. In fact, it’s quite cheap considering the sheer quality of it. In addition, Sergio will provide you with the PSD and any other sources (such as fonts) used in high resolution so that you can print offline material such as business cards, posters, or T-Shirts with your mascot. He also guarantees his work – he’ll provide you with early sketches and revisions along the way to make sure you’re happy with the way it’s taking shape. If not, he’ll do it until you are. In addition to mascots and logos, Sergio also does traditional print, web, and stationery design. Just check out his portfolio to see his awesome work for yourself. Tell Sergio that Tyler sent you and he’ll take care of you. Webdesignbe – Formerly 4Design.tv, Webdesignbe.com is one of those hidden resource gems that isn’t widely marketed and linked everywhere but rather spread through word of mouth. In fact, that is how I found out about them – through a friend. I hire them for all my graphic work now. Webdesignbe is a small but great design company from Belgium run by husband and wife. Check out their portfolio to see examples of their work. They do pretty much anything graphic-related including: website design, banners, logos, business cards, etc. They offer very unique and creative design, a fast turnaround, free revisions, are very affordable considering their quality, and give the source files (PSDs, fonts, etc.). I highly recommend them. Tell Nathalie that Tyler says “Hi” :-) Programming Interberry – Interberry is a programming company that I have regularly hired since finding them several years ago. They have done all my programming work since, including Movie-Vault.com, PublisherChallenge, and several other sites and projects. Being a perfectionist and having a lot of experience with developing websites and outsourcing, I can be very demanding. Interberry impresses me in that they never complain or hesitate to do anything I request. That’s saying a lot because I often send 3-4 e-mails per day with lists of new things to add or other changes, and they won’t complain at all, they’d just get it done. You can contact them via their website at Interberry.com, e-mail them at info@interberry.com, phone them at +1-888-367-1110 (during 9:30 am to 6:30 pm Indian Standard Time), or if you’re like me you’ll want to talk to them via Skype chat. Add cheb.iberry to your Skype contacts for that. For more information, you can read some of my past posts on Interberry at: The Programmers Behind PublisherChallenge, My Christmas Gift to You: Interberry, and 2 More Reasons Why You Should Hire Interberry. Be sure to tell Interberry that I sent you, and they’ll treat you extra nice :-) Outsourcing Websites Elance – Elance.com is the most established and leading authority for outsourcing work online. I’ve personally used them since 2004 to find programmers for my various projects (before finding Interberry). Elance has 2 million providers, allowing you to you hire professionals in almost any field relating to business including: programming, design, writing, admin support, accounting, marketing, and even legal services. Freelancer – Freelancer is similar to Elance, only its providers seem to offer cheaper prices. They also have over 7 million freelancers in their system, and have grown at a tremendous pace the past few years, and seem to have now overtaken Elance as the largest outsourcing work site. It’s partly the higher number of freelancers on Freelancer that tends to drive the bids down. For smaller, simpler, projects, I tend to use Freelancer over Elance. oDesk – oDesk tends to have a lot more European providers compared to Elance and Freelancer, which have mostly Indian providers. oDesk also tends to have higher bids from their providers as well. However, I really like how oDesk presents their providers, clearly displaying their hourly rate, description, portfolio, and past projects and rating. oDesk also has a test feature, in which providers can take certain tests in their field so you can get an idea as to their level of skill in that particular field. Overall, oDesk has a much higher quality of providers than other freelance sites, in my opinion, but they’re also far more expensive. SEO Tools RankPay – RankPay is a very unique SEO firm in that they have a business model in which they only charge based on the results they provide. Basically, the higher you rank, the more you pay. The prices are per keyword and will vary depending on the keyword and your website. The are also tiered, so the higher you rank, the more you will pay. What’s nice though is that you only have to pay once you are ranked in the top 30 – you won’t have to pay a cent if you’re ranked #31, for example. I worked out a special deal with them, and so if you decide to sign up with them, be sure to use TYLERCRUZ as the promo code when you register, as it will give you an instant $50 credit applied to your account. RankTracker – I absolutely love RankTracker and highly recommend it. It tracks the rankings of your keywords and provides graphs, charts, and reports on their progress. There is no program that is as accurate and has as many features as RankTracker. It will search virtually any search engine, and provide accurate rankings up to the 1,000th result. You can watch an early screencast review I made for more details, or look at some screenshots of the results from any of my past SEO Case Study posts. I highly recommend RankTracker for anyone wanting to keep track of their keyword rankings. E-mail List Management AWeber – AWeber is an e-mail list management service that allows you to collect e-mail addresses from your visitors. Ask any top internet marketer the one thing they regret, and they’ll likely tell you that it’s not building an e-mail list sooner. Starting at only $19/month, it’s pretty affordable. AWeber is very popular because they are an extremely “whitehat” company. They are very strict in how their users conduct their e-mail lists such as all e-mail list subscriptions having to be confirmed and opted-in, and having a zero-tolerance policy for using their services for spamming of any kind. This strictness is actually a very good thing as it establishes themselves as a respected company and are therefore often safelisted (as opposed to blacklisted!) on many ISP’s and servers. AWeber also offers a horde of features, such as awesome tracking, great analytics, and the ability to collect e-mail addresses by providing something to the user, such as a download to your e-book, for example (ever wonder why so many internet marketers pitch their free e-book?). If used correctly, AWeber will easily pay for itself and then some. Popup Domination – Popup Domination is a web script that overlays a lightbox sign-up form over your website in order to encourage visitors to sign up to your mailing list. While the concept is simple, the fact is that it works. In fact, most of the top internet marketers are using it, such as John Chow, Zac Johnson, Shoemoney, etc. They’re using it not to annoy their readers, but because it works. You can check out a short case study I did with adding Popup Domination on my blog. Basically, I increased my subscription rate by 1,033%. It works. Popup Domination is designed to work with all the major mailing list services, such as AWeber (see above), and offers a number of customizable features such as being able to set it so that the lightbox doesn’t appear until after the visitor has made a certain number of pageviews on your site. Web Hosting HostGator – I’ve stated in several interviews now that the best business decision I made in 2009 was switching to HostGator. They have amazing hosting packages which will suit 99% of you, from basic web hosting starting at $3.96 a month to powerful dedicated servers. HostGator has a spotless reputation online and is an Inc. 5000 company. Their customer support is beyond outstanding – what I especially like is their 24/7 live chat support (with literally over a hundred agents ready to help you instantly). They even do free site transfers for you, if you’re switching from another provider. I am a complete fanboy when it comes to HostGator and simply cannot recommend them highly enough. Use the coupon code TYLERCRUZ25 when signing up to receive a full 25% off your initial order (it’s therefore recommended to prepay a year in advance to take advantage of the discount). LiquidWeb – I mention above that HostGator will work for 99% of you. After all, I use HostGator myself. But I also use LiquidWeb. In the Spring of 2011, I bought a website that was receiving mad traffic and utilizing a lot of server resources. My dedicated server at HostGator wouldn’t be able to handle it properly, at least not with any growth, which is saying a lot because the Pro Dedicated Server at HostGator is pretty damn powerful. And so I purchased a new dedicated at LiquidWeb. LiquidWeb specializes in dedicated servers and can offer custom packages much bigger than HostGator’s largest available server. For example, my server with them is a 16x core! LiquidWeb has great customer support with 24/7 live chat support and a wide selection of server customizable and upgrade options available. I therefore recommend LiquidWeb for those 1% of you who need something REALLY powerful. Domain Registrars GoDaddy – GoDaddy is the world’s largest domain name registrar, and most professional domainers (those who buy and sell domains for a living) use GoDaddy. GoDaddy has awesome customer support. To give you an idea of just how great their support is: on two separate occasions I accidentally registered domains with an accidental typo. Both times I contacted support and they kindly refunded my money within minutes and wished me a good day. They have great prices, especially if you become a member of the Domain Discount Club (very useful if you have a lot of domains), and allow for easy and instant domain transfers (which is why most domainers use GoDaddy). They have one downside though. Their site is extremely ad heavy and you will be bombarded with offer after offer as you use their site, but once you get used to them you quickly learn to ignore them. NameCheap – While I mainly use GoDaddy, I also use NameCheap since it’s also a very popular registrar and many domainers use it an alternative. NameCheap is nice because their site is much cleaner than GoDaddy’s, and they don’t try to hard-sell you on their products and services like GoDaddy does. Their prices are awesome, as their name suggests, and probably their best perk is that all the domains come with free WhoisGuard protection. I wouldn’t recommend them if you plan on flipping domains, though. They are rather bitter when you transfer a domain away from them to another registrar… waiting until the last possible second according to the ICANN rules (the end of the 5th working day) to approve the transfer. Buying & Selling Domains + Websites Flippa – Flippa is hands-down the best place to buy and sell established websites. You can find websites there from as low as $50 to as high as $1,000,000+. I have been using Flippa for many years (it used to be Sitepoint Marketplace before becoming its own site), both buying and selling sites on it, and can highly recommend it. Be sure to watch a video of a webinar I did with e John Chow, Zac Johnson, and Matt Mickiewicz (the co-founder of Flippa) in which I was a panellist. My presentation begins around the 24-minute mark. There are invaluable tips for buying and selling sites there. DNForum – I’ve been a member of DNForum since early 2004. DNForum is an absolute massive domain name forum in which you can discuss anything pertaining to domain names. But its main purpose is for members to post their domains for sale, where potential buyers can then contact them. In order to gain access to some of the buying and selling sections, you’ll need to upgrade your membership on the site. Fortunately, there are lifetime options available, and I recommend getting the lifetime Platinum membership (that’s what I have). If you do a lot of domain buying and selling, this one-time cost will pay for itself quickly. NamePros – NamePros is just like DNForum, only it’s completely free. Whenever I post my domains for sale or am looking for some domains to buy, I always use both DNForum and NamePros. In fact, you’ll find many posts duplicated on both sites from other people doing the same thing. Sedo – Sedo is a large domain marketplace. However, unlike DNForum and NamePros, Sedo takes a commission (10%) for every domain you sell. It does not cost anything to list your domain(s) for sale, however. Sedo is most beneficial for sellers of premium domain names who are looking to get a high price tag. It is therefore not so great for buyers, as the prices for most of the domains listed on Sedo tend to be quite inflated. BuyDomains – BuyDomains is another domain marketplace, only they tend to focus on higher-quality domains when compared to Sedo. What I like about BuyDomains is that if you have a higher budget, you can find some pretty nice domains for fair prices. It is therefore not-so-good to list your domain for sale there, but as a buyer it’s pretty nice. If you’re willing to spend $1,500 – $20,000+ for a domain, I’d recommend taking a look at BuyDomains first to see if they have anything that suits your needs. Social Media Tools & Services Twiends – Twiends is a service that allows Twitter users to list themselves in which is essentially a giant Twitter directory. The secret is to purchase seeds instead of using their free service. I personally grew my number of followers from 1,000 to over 60,000+ by using them. Be sure to read my very detailed review and case study of Twiends, as well as my follow-up post: How I Gained 25,000 Real Twitter Followers. FeedBurner – FeedBurner is an RSS feed management provider owned and operated by Google. By creating an account (free) and adding your RSS feed(s), you can gain access to a large number of features such as keeping track of how many people are subscribed to your feed(s), offering e-mail delivery whenever you make a new post, and most importantly – having a centralized source for your RSS feed. If you switch domains, for example, you won’t need to rebuild your RSS followers from scratch again. FeedBurner is a must-have for any blogger or anyone with an RSS feed. Tube Toolbox – Tube Toolbox is an absolute awesome software program that dramatically boosts your YouTube friends, followers, and video views. The best part is that as long as you use the software tool properly, that these are highly-targeted users who are genuinely interested in being your friend and subscribing to your channel. You can see an early case study I published in my post: How I Gained 5,000 Friends and 260 Subscribers on YouTube in 1 Month. I purchased the lifetime account and would recommend you do so as well, as it’s a one-time fee. As long as you own it for 13 months, you’ll save $10 a month each month thereafter. SocialCrocodile – SocialCrocodile is a service in which you can pay to boost your social media metrics. They currently offer packages for: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube/Vimeo/MetaCafe, LinkedIn, Google +1, and are working on adding some new sources such as RSS. Their packages are very affordable. For example, you can get 10,000 Twitter followers for $93 or 5,000 Facebook fans for $98. They also deliver results fast. I received 5,000 Facebook fans and 2,000 Twitter followers in 5 days. I worked out a special deal with them: if you use the coupon code: tylercruz when placing your order, they will issue you back a 10% refund after you pay (this is a makeshift deal which is why you don’t receive the discount until after you pay).