It’s an article about the surge in Michael Jackson memorabilia sales after his announced death. My part was on the pre-death sales of MJ items on eBay.

Still, during Jackson’s life, some recent signs suggested relatively little interest from the broader consumer market in his memorabilia. Before Jackson’s death, sellers listed an average 200 to 400 memorabilia items daily on eBay (EBAY: 17.35, +0.21, +1.22%), only 50 to 100 of which sold, according to market researcher eSeller Street. Of course, some items offered on eBay may not have been of sufficient quality to attract buyers.

I hope I get a link next time.

Over 5,000 MJ items sold during this same 18 hours.

This is 5,000% to 10,000% more than the average number of MJ items sold in the beginning of June.

See the most watched auctions for Michael Jackson memorabilia.

The Thriller LP is particularly hot.

Do not listen to this Eben Pagan self promotion audio clip: http://masscontrolsite.com/blog/?p=50

I’ll summarize it for you just in case you are curious: I’m Eben, and I’m so popular and successful because I mastered the art of the hard sell blah, blah, blah,…. and now every one of my customers sends spammy emails to you.

1. Give your most valuable thing away.

2. Use the 4 learning styles to communicate with 100% of audience:

• Why learning style: If you learn this, you get this payoff, if you don’t, this will happen.
• What learning style: How does it work, what’s the history, academic style, theory
• How: Action steps, like 1, 2, 3 steps to help them.
• What if: Do it right now. Take action. Call to action.

Example: Teach someone about email marketing.
Why: Email marketing is responsible for 90% of money made.
What: history, examples of emails.
How: get aweber.com, give link.
What if: “key to success is to get started today” “Go to your computer now, or you will never do it.”

Why did I listen in pain to this clip? I got an email recommendation from this “credible” Affiliate Marketer.

“I just wanted to THANK YOU both for what I consider to be the BEST interview and info-call that I have ever heard in the 5 years I have been listening to webinars, tele-conference calls, tele-seminars, etc.”

The above comment was made by someone that just listened to an amazing interview that you need to check out.

* No opt-in is required.

This is quite easily one of the best ‘marketing’
interviews ever…

Tons of killer tips and techniques were shared. From launches to how to ‘giveaway’ stuff that can make you a fortune.

Listen to it now *and* make sure to take notes…

http://masscontrolsite.com/blog/?p=50

Yours For Online Profits,

John Reese

Income.com, Inc., 8815 Conroy-Windermere rd #415, Orlando, FL 32835, USA

affiliate marketing — or paying online publishers to drive quality traffic to a company’s Web site based on the purchases and revenue they help generate — has quietly grown into a $6 billion+ industry. Jupiter Research expects affiliate marketing to grow another 13% year-over-year through 2012.

There is an overwhelming amount of niche markets and techniques used by Affiliate Marketers (AM). I’ve given myself a week (or two) to make sense of the mass of loudly broadcast information on AM. There are credible sources who provide AF information and tools, but it takes time to read through, process and filter out the deceptive claims of “make easy money in minutes”.

The “affiliate” part is simple: earn a commission for sending a buying customer to a destination site. Affiliates want to increase their earnings by increasing traffic to their own site and pre-selling products before sending users to the destination affiliate site. For example, posting a product review will get targeted traffic to your website and make people want to buy the product.

“Marketing” is where AM gets complicated. John Reese simply says that your assets are an email/member list and content. Marketing is the methods you choose to promote your content to your user list.

Here’s a simple checklist to understand any AF’s business model:

Retailmenot.com

1. Target audience: shoppers ready to checkout
2. Website Content: People powered coupon codes, revenue share when people post on the site
3. Source of traffic: Natural Search Engine Optimization (SEO), pay people to post on blogs
4. Monetization source: retailers, Google Ads

CNET reviews:

1. Target audience: Tech shoppers
2. Website Content: reviews of tech products
3. Source of traffic: Natural Search Engine Optimization (SEO), inbound links
4. Monetization source: retailers, Ads

popsugar.com

1. Target audience: Star watchers
2. Website content: dishing on the stars
3. Source of traffic: Natural SEO, inbound links
4. Monetization: retailers, ads

As you can see, there are many practices, techniques and strategies. The simplest strategy is to promote eBay or Amazon items on a blog. The most attention grabbing AFs use hype and popularity to draw large numbers of followers who they then monetize. Then there are the quiet AFs like Kaboodle.com and MSN.com.

Now to review the Affiliate Marketing tools that I reluctantly decided to sign up for, but pledge to use without resistance. There is too much information for 1 or 2 posts, so here’s an overview.

Overview:

1. Opportunity.com ($40 per month):
   John Reese’s new site has a series of instructional videos that start at the beginner level. As I mentioned before, he starts with the most important assets for an affiliate marketer: 1. an email/member list and 2. content.

   This site is oriented to the non-technical, so it would be a good fit for eBay sellers. In fact, John says technical work takes time away from money making activities. Hmm…there is truth to that. I’m guilty of spending too much time creating features and not enough energy on marketing. But I think you need a technical solution and technical capability in order to scale your results.

   Impression: Good introduction. $40 a month is too much. But then I paid $75K for my MBA from Northwestern University. { Shrug }

2. Shoemoney tools ($9.95 1st month, $100 per month after 1st month):
   Shoemoney provides tools for an active Affiliate Marketer to use. It’s more advanced than Opportunity.com.

   The first thing I saw under the SEO tools tab is the domain marketplace. It shows a list of unregistered domains for sale, the number of inbound links, and where the links come from (.gov, .mil, .edu). The prices are around $10-30 each but you can’t see the entire domain that you are purchasing. They show hidden domains like this: xxxshop-xxx.net. There’s no guarantee that the links actually drive traffic to the URLs for sale.

   My impression: I’m not sure if the tools are more useful than free tools yet. I have to dive in further. It would be better if they added written help text in addition to the video tutorials, but they have good support personnel.

3. Tim Buchalka (FREE so far)
   Tim promotes his videos and tools on Twitter. The thing I like about Tim is that he doesn’t use a lot of hard-sell hype. He is simply persistent and uses positive language.
4. SEObook.com
   This is the most cerebral of the bunch. They mostly focus on techniques to drive traffic to your site using natural search engine optimization (SEO). I follow all of their SEO advice on my site.

Next post: Domain strategies.

Watch the fur (or feathers) fly on this auction at www.watcheditem.com

1. My first step to getting visible was to use my name, Mei Ling. Pronounced it sounds like “May Ling”. It’s my middle name which is Chinese for Beautiful Princess Warrior (well, more like pretty and petite). I used Mei Ling for my entire life until I started my own business and went by my first name, Michelle. Why? I guess I wanted to be stay anonymous. But I’m a Mei Ling at heart.

2. Second, I contacted ShoeMoney to see if he wanted to work with me and Vitalii on a new project. Jeremy Schoemaker had posted he was looking at opportunities to invest in or projects to collaborate on. My expertise is in specifying features and getting development done whether doing it myself or working with developers. That’s my sweet spot, but I need the Marketing piece. Partnering with a superstar would be awesome. We’re totally ready to build a larger scale service. No reply yet.

3. Third, I signed up for ShoeMoney tools, John Reese’s Opportunity.com, Tim Buchalka and entered The $10,000 Business Boost. One of the prizes for the $10,000 Business Boost is Aaron Wall’s SEOBook SEO Training. I already follow every single piece of SEO advice from SEOBook, but I haven’t signed up for the service.

Next post… What I learned so far.

Mei Ling

eBay used to be about competitive bidding and fun auctions until fall 2008 when they incentivized sellers to use fixed price listings. Fixed price listings are pretty boring – no bidding wars, no outrageous bids, no emotion. But good for us, we can still find interesting stuff on www.watcheditem.com.

WatchedItem.com’s Hall of Fame top 500 most watched listings shows you the actual number of people watching popular listings. The eBay pulse hides watcher information. Why eBay hides watcher counts is both a mystery and an opportunity for me (the creator of Watched Item).

You’re probably already familiar with the eBay pulse. Once you start watching the most popular items on eBay, you will get TOTALLY ADDICTED – like me!

The home page of the eBay Pulse shows the top listings in each category. You can drill deeper into categories on this page: the eBay pulse
Viewing the most watched listings on eBay is like using a compass. You immediately see what’s valuable and worth buying. If you are a seller, then the most watched auctions tell you what to sell.

Watched Item vs the eBay Pulse comparison
1. WI shows you the actual number of watchers. eBay does not. There is a huge difference between the top few items and the average items.
2. WI lets you view pulse items by keyword. Example: Rat Rod
3. WI will give you an opinionated answer to your questions. eBay will give you a terse canned response.
4. WI lets you filter items by fixed price or auctions. Nada on eBay.
5. WI lets you find a seller’s most watched items. Zippo on eBay.

Try it out Watched Item in a niche market. Say you love one-of-a-kind (OOAK) Artist Dolls. Take a look at this page: watcheditem.com/search Art Dolls-OOAK

Here are some other cool markets:
Breweriana & Beer
ACEO
Reborn dolls
fantasy dolls
John Deere

BTW, Watched Item is also an awesome banner maker for eBay sellers.

This is what’s getting released this month:
1. Hover images on the search page. Can you believe eBay charges sellers for enlarged pictures?
2. Sort a seller’s items by watchers on the search page.
3. Product Gallery Banner shows items sorted by watchers.
4. Better logs and an alert system to tell me if something is wrong with the banners.
5. A FAQ page.
6. Better landing page from the watcher counter.
7. Better landing page for search engine traffic.

…and a ton of other little things.
——————–

Oh, yeah, I added a cool “tweet this” button because I’m a Twitterhead now. twitter.com/eBayWatchedItem

It’s for Reggie Bush’s motorcycle which has 443 watchers at 7 pm CT today.

Suzuki : GSX-R Reggie Bush’s Custom Suzuki Motorcycle, 2007

Free seller photo widgets at www.WatchedItem.com

Auction Watcher Counter from WatchedItem.com

Clearly WatchedItem.com is unfamiliar with recently. granted patent 7490056, held by eBay… http://tinyurl.com/dz6l35 about 14 hours ago from twitterrific

http://twitter.com/adamnash/statuses/1272597308

I will say that WatchedItem.com is going to breathe positive energy into the eBay marketplace.

$138.50, 8 bids, ends in 1d 20h 12m
Judith Ripka Gold & Silver Diamond & Pink Crystal Earrings