Intro - $1m /yr with Self Improvement Webstores

Dan Bainbridge

New member
May 14, 2012
22
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Traveling - Asia
Hi, I just joined here after recommendation from Vadym, I hope to introduce myself, learn, contribute, and grow my businesses through new channels.

I'm Dan Bainbridge, I've been in business online for around 5 years, with 3 big-ish webstores in the self improvement niches - the latest / biggest one being Hypnosis MP3s / CDs - Hypnosis Audio Downloads[/url]

My sites have grown consistently over the last 5 years and in the rolling last 12 months I've taken in over $1m in revenue total + more though email marketing to external offers of my JV partners. I'm just finishing a big launch on Natural Hypnosis which has brought in around $130k in 12 days.

I'd be happy to answer any questions and share my knowledge on building authority, leading websites in tight but large enough niches. I have knowledge in seo, some ppc, copy, site structure, but probably my main area of expertise is in affiliate marketing generally and especially in JVs, and launches - most of my traffic and money comes via affiliates, launches and JVs.

What I'm here for is to learn other sources of traffic generation - for all of our success, we still don't get huge numbers of clicks on a day to day basis without special events.. I'd love to learn CPA and traffic generation through new sources, new networks so that I can grow my lists and business without heavily relying on JVs and affiliates (as it can be a lot of work to coordinate big events and hard to manage expectations of partners etc).

What I'm also really here for is to hopefully find a partner who really understands CPA, who can really drive traffic - we would like to open up our affiliate program to pay on a CPA (we only pay per sale at the minute) basis for subscribers to our free newsletter (which opts in around 35% for a set of 3 free hypnosis mp3s worth $45). Our business converts, we generate good money, and this is a whole area that we don't cover but know we have the offers and interest for.. perhaps I'll post more about this in the future..

Anyway, it's nice to be here, I hear it is a forum with a much better signal-to-noise ratio than places like the awful WF and useless DP and that people here actually make money, actually know how to generate traffic and know what theyre talking about :)

Dan
 
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Hey Dan, welcome to the forum.

First things first, I'd recommend not sharing your niches/sites here publically. There have been cases in the past of people targeting sites in a negative manner, etc.. Generally speaking if you want to work with someone you can PM a specific person / give "general" info about what you're doing out, and only go into specifics with individuals.

Sounds like a solid business you've got going - congrats. Always good to have an extra person here on WF who actually does have an income from online marketing ;)
 
Wow, an intro where the first reply wasn't a dickroll or a stream of abuse. Maybe all the STS trolls are still in bed. Interesting niche, someone I met offline a while back was trying and failing to promote some stuff they'd created. Unfortunately, they made the typical content producer's mistake of assuming marketing was just something they could "bolt on", and get someone else to do at low cost.
 
Hey Dan, welcome to the forum.

First things first, I'd recommend not sharing your niches/sites here publically. There have been cases in the past of people targeting sites in a negative manner, etc..

Hmm, can't seem to edit my post , but hopefully I havent pissed anyone off yet :)

amateursurgeon said:
Unfortunately, they made the typical content producer's mistake of assuming marketing was just something they could "bolt on", and get someone else to do at low cost.

Agreed, it's all about the marketing, not the product.. I happen to believe in our product and think it to be world leading quality, but yes I'm a marketer who just happens to sell hypnosis and subliminal messages etc...

Bofu2U said:
Looks like you've found a way to remarket your clientele well. Nice, man

If you're not remarketing or only have one product then youre sleeping on 2x-3x your potential profits.. our buyers list converts at 30% on clicks when we launch new products, remarketing wtf!
 
Anybody who can sell a million dollars worth of stuff online within a year has my respect. Welcome to the forum Dan!

Please kindly dickroll yourself here to complete the official WickedFire initiation ritual.
 
Hi Dan. Firstly, well done on what you've achieved, very impressive.

Can you talk a little about how you came to end up selling hypnosis products? What was the process you went though? Was it something you already knew about? How did you go about sourcing/producing the items?
 
Welcome Dan, nice to see you over here. Not sure if you'll find the signal to noise higher than NC though.

Now post a bunch of epic boobs to make up for your intro post transgressions.
 
Welcome Dan. Hope you have fun over here!

I hope this thread will soon be good enough to be in Enlightened Members Section.

Question:
Did the penguin update affect you? What kind of links do you recommend?

You may want to share your experience with gay webmasters.
 
Hi Dan. Firstly, well done on what you've achieved, very impressive.

Can you talk a little about how you came to end up selling hypnosis products? What was the process you went though? Was it something you already knew about? How did you go about sourcing/producing the items?

... hmm... I'm just a normal guy, who happens to do this... its a long story really... but I started 6 years ago..

I bought bout sarongs from Bali at $1 each.. sold them on ebay for $6 each, after fees and postage I more than doubled my money.. but only like $500 right... but still, something went "ping" in my head... like "wow, I can do this, if I had more I could sell more, if I had other related things I could sell those too... I really might not have to work for the man, being a chump, in a job I hate forever.." but I didn't have anything else to sell.. I sold pirated DVDs till I got banned from Ebay, I then sold eBooks on ebay.. but lost like $100 cos it was so competitive... I then sold "white noise" but that wasn't high volume... then some Ebay sellers who were selling that were selling "subliminal audio"... I got a few made, sold them, saw that there was a market, sold them, profited pretty quick.. made like $1000 in month 2 on Ebay.. then Ebay stopped allowing all digital downloads...

Just around/before this time a friend partnered up with me properly and he is a web developer, we started putting effort into building our own site... we did so for another 6 months, while not paying ourselves anything and only earning pennies... over the next 2 years this site grew into the largest and busiest single subliminal audio site online and still pays me decent enough money...

Then I bought another subliminal site and setup as a rival to myself... half genius half stupid... I now occupy 2 of the top 10 searches for all keywords instead of just one.. but really probably better to setup something different but related...

After about 3 years we went to buy a hypnosis site off some guy... realised the site was rubbish and we might as well start from scratch, but we wanted the guy... we told him this, showed him our stats and what we'd done with the subliminals and soon we partnered with him for the hypnosis site too...

So.. maybe something like year 1 - $30k, 2=$150k, 3=$300k, 4+$700k, 5=$1m+ ... roughly.. revenue not profit, across all 3 sites and all money...

So I'm not a "self improvement guru" I'm just someone who wanted to make money online, I didn't realise that most people start as affiliates, I just accidentally started as a merchant.. I'm a marketer not a product creator, I spend my time writing copy (I've written the entire text for all 3 of our websites.. around 700+ short copy salespages) I manage affiliates and chat to JV partners.. and more than anything I think were successful because in the early days I would work with a burning fury to make it, I could see others were doing it and I wanted it BADLY, to get out of my shit job and to make something of myself, to do something that other people only dream of... and now.. I don't work so much furiously, and I don't quite live my ideal lifestyle yet.. but I do work quite hard, but at the same time I live in a tropical country and surf most mornings before starting work...

Anybody who can sell a million dollars worth of stuff online within a year has my respect. Welcome to the forum Dan!

Please kindly dickroll yourself here to complete the official WickedFire initiation ritual.

ha, I have been here before, and I have been dickrolled so I wont be clicking that... I'm pretty sure I haven't had my last dickroll tbh tho..

Welcome Dan, nice to see you over here. Not sure if you'll find the signal to noise higher than NC though.

Now post a bunch of epic boobs to make up for your intro post transgressions.

Cheers mate, not sure quite what you mean? Topless chicks maybe?

hot_chicks.jpg
 
After seeing your revenue numbers I find your giant thread on another forum dedicated to finding a high-quality content writer for $5 an hour somewhat hilarious... but hey, this is internet marketing.

Welcome to WF!
 
Very insightful actually. Could you please go into more details on how to acquire JV partners and affiliates? I appreciate you taking the time to post here, cheers!
 
Is that 1 million before affiliates get paid or after?

I think the niche you're in is huge and has massive potential. Digital products traditionally don't get a warm welcome here, there is a backlash against gurus selling ebooks and training that goes back to the founding of the forum iirc.

I hope you stick around.

As far as CPA stuff, those guys don't talk a lot about what they do in public, but maybe you can get some networking going.
 
After seeing your revenue numbers I find your giant thread on another forum dedicated to finding a high-quality content writer for $5 an hour somewhat hilarious... but hey, this is internet marketing.

Welcome to WF!

Haha, cheers, I'm a funny guy :) It wasn't about the money, I was so sick of Indian workers who would go awol, and I do need value still.. but more about finding the right person who really "wanted it"... and I found them, and now I pay them more, and hope to work with them more and more... had to be someone who could see beyond the money, someone who was fired up for an opportunity :)