Earnings for April

Well another month has passed already and the world waits with baited breath to see what Mark has earned on the internet during April. OK, maybe not! So, what has April brought? Well, I have been focusing on putting into practice the lessons I have learned from One Week Marketing, during which I have made some mistakes, but I have got some things right as well. And I did make a sale - only one, but it's a start.

Frustratingly I have only managed to get 2 campaigns up and running due in part to my lack of available time. The other issue is that I simply take too long writing articles and Squidoo lenses. I have read that around 15 minutes should be the norm for writing an article - it takes me about an hour! Maybe I will get quicker with practice?!

I started the month with a bit of an Ebay campaign, but I lost momentum after a week. I have loads of stuff to sell, so I must get more organised with this.

So, what did I actually make this month? Remember that I only count what I have actually received:

Surveys: £10 - Toluna
Ebay: £36.76
Blogsvertise : £7.44

Total = £54.20 (that's $80.35 in case you were wondering).

Perhaps a little disappointing, but I have just started changing emphasis in terms of how I earn money online, moving away from surveys towards internet marketing. Also I have a number of payments pending (including my Clickbank sale), so these should bump up my May total. I have started to consider the direction that I am going in and how best to use my time, but I haven't come to any real conclusions. I will ponder over the next few days and come up with a plan. Anyway, we are only 3 months away from July when my goal is to be earning £300 per month. This is looking a little remote at the moment.

Win FREE Business Cards or Brochures from UPrinting.com

Would you like to win FREE 1000 Business Cards or 500 Brochures from UPrinting.com to publicize your business? Well, you can right here at Extra Cash Challenge! But more of that in a moment.

UPrinting.com offer a huge range of printed products from Business Card Printing, to Brochures, to Letterheads, to Posters, to Menus, to..... well the list is huge! These are all printed to high quality to your custom design, although they do provide templates to help you, and are affordable. Not only that, UPrinting.com is committed to eco-friendly printing using only environmentally friendly inks and recycling wherever possible.

At the moment they are offering 20% off Catalogs and also 20% off Labels and Stickers.

OK, so how do you get your hands on your freebies? Well, all you have to do is a leave a comment telling me how you would use either the business cards or the brochures. This will remain open until 9th May 2009 (if there are no entrants by this date, I may extend it). The 2 winners will be selected at random (by use of random.org) and will be announced on 10th May 2009. Postage for the Business Card and Brochures for the winners will be free to residents of the U.S. and Canada, but elsewhere there will be a charge.

Good luck!

N.B. THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED!

One Week Marketing Progress Report

I am two weeks into my One Week Marketing campaign and how am I doing? Well, as anticipated my "one week" took a little longer than 7 days (11 days in fact, which was not too bad) to set up my first campaign. I have now made a tentative start on my second campaign, and already behind schedule as I have a certain amount of research to do!

So, the big question... have I started making any money? To be honest I was treating the first couple of campaigns as a learning experience so I was not expecting to really make anything in the first few weeks. But.... after months of looking at my Clickbank account flatlining at zero I have finally made a sale! Only one, so I should not get too carried away, but it felt like my first "Yee-ha" moment as a novice internet marketer.

And here is my Clickbank sales snapshot:


I guess for some of you seasoned affiliate marketers this is probably pretty insignificant, but for me it is huge! It means that the work I have put in is starting to pay off and there hope of making significant money of One Week Marketing if I continue to apply the methods described.

Achieving Success with Affiliate Marketing

Despite my extensive research on making money as an affiliate, all my efforts have come to nothing. I have come to the conclusion that although I have amassed a great deal of knowledge around the subject, what I lack is a clear system. What I need is someone to tell in clear terms how it's done. I am not ready for trying to get together a list or for PPC ads. What I really need is someone to guide me through free methods of making money through affiliate marketing.

So..... the £37 that I have recently received from Global Test Market I have re-invested it in One Week Marketing. This is the first time I have spent money on a making money online guide but I feel that it is worth it. One Week Marketing is put together by Jennifer Ledbetter otherwise known as PotPieGirl who I have come across before on Squidoo and I have read her blog on a number of occasions so I felt reassured by this.

The system concentrates on setting up marketing campaigns using free methods such as Squidoo. The guide gives you a day by day account of what you should do over a 7 day period, after which you forget it and move on to the next campaign. I have started my first, although I am finding that my 7 days are more likely to take around 14 given that my time is split between my full-time job, my family, maintaining my blogs and my various self-sufficiency efforts. I have decided that I will use the first campaign as a learning process and come to a conclusion about what timescales are realistic for me.

I am really excited about One Week Marketing - it has been written in a way that is easily understandable to everyone and it just makes so much sense. I can also see how I could use elements of the system to promote other projects such as my blogs and my Zlio shops. But... as usual I am already thinking about running when I haven't yet learned to walk.

Has anyone else tried One Week Marketing? Has it been successful for you?