For the entire month of February, I decided to put an advert in the Business Opportunity section of Exchange and Mart.

Basically, this was a rather expensive test to see the kind of response an ad would generate.

It was a very simple experiment:

I paid for one 5x5cm “Photo Spot” for 4 weeks at £45 + VAT per week.

Total spend = £211

I set everything up with a new tracking domain so that I could be sure that any hits I got to my site were coming directly from that advert and that advert only.

Net gain for me per sale would be around £22 so I needed to sell about 10 to break even.

The advert started on the 1st February.

Results:

OK, first week I got 51 hits – and at this point I knew this wouldn’t be a success.

2nd week I got 58 hits, 3rd week 54 and in the 4th week I got 80 hits.

Total hits = 243

Which worked out at about 87p per visitor – not cheap considering that this type of advertising is not very targetted.

After all that, I didn’t get a single sale so it wasn’t a success and I pulled the plug.

The rep at Exchange and Mart called to ask if I wanted to extend the advert – I said a definite NO!

He then tried to cross-sell me into a smaller, less expensive advert but I pointed out to him that the response was miniscule with a reasonably large advert so it could only get worse with less surface area on the page.

Eventually, he admitted defeat.

So, my first test of offline advertising and it flopped.

However, at least now I know what kind of response to expect from Exchange and Mart.

So, time for a feedback request:

Have you ever run an advert offline to point at a website?

Where did you run it?

Was it expensive?

Was it a success?

Any tips?

Please leave any feedback by clicking on the “Comments” link below. Or, you can email me at the usual address.

In the meantime I am testing and tracking other sources for advertising so please expect some more results in the future…

I’ve recently received several emails about this one. It’s called the “Global Pension Plan” and promises to help you turn €30 into €55,000 or more!

I got the following email and decided to look into it:

“Hi Ben
Could you be kind enough to look into this opportunity for me, what’s your opinon on this one, sounds too good to be true!….has it got scam written all over it? it was passed on to me by friend.
thanks for your time
Phil”

Well, I had a good look at the site and tried to find out who is behind it and what is going on.

Rather than take up space here, please visit the main site:

Global Pension Plan – Is it a Scam?

Once you’ve read the report there, please feel free to comment on this blog or send me an email to the usual address.

Thanks,

Ben

*UPDATE 23/02/2008* – I’ve had to remove some comments as the blog was collapsing under the weight!

These comments have been archived and you can view them here:

Archived Global Pension Plan Comments

*UPDATE 13/11/2008* – I’ve had a few problems with the blog over the past 24 hours which resulted in a restore from backup. Consequently you may find some rogue symbols dotted around the place – especially where there used to be a € or £ sign. Apologies for this but there are far too many for me to correct!

*UPDATE 22/12/2008* – Just for fun: The Global Pension Plan – Stella’s Updates

*UPDATE 16/06/2009* - Now that Stella is gone or dead or whatever – she’s not writing the updates in any case – let’s just remind ourselves of when the final date for GPP is (from the official site):

“20th of November, 2008
Deadline & General update

The Final Deadline: 31st of January 2009
During the last week and half we have been closely in touch with the insurance company and the financier of this project and agreed the final deadline to be set on the above mentioned date. The current turbulent financial climate has created a great pressure to finish the program as soon as possible. This date is absolute and means, that we MUST reach the initially set target of 100.000 qualified members. Otherwise the program closes without payout.”

Note that Stella said “this date is absolute” so it was surprising when the new ‘admin’ posted this:

“10th of May, 2009
Update

Dear Global Pension Plan Members,
As per Trust Partner’s decision, we hereby announce the final closing date of Global Pension Plan: 06/30/2009 That is the 30th of June 2009.
The current number of fully qualified members is only slightly short of the 100.000 limit.
Trust Partner highly appreaciates your efforts and sends you best wishes and luck for the last month and a half.
Sincerely,
Admin”

*UPDATE 26/10/2009* – Apologies for the problems with the blog over the weekend. A new plugin caused the issues. All should be back to normal now…

I received an email this week from Peter who asked:

“There is a company who have been advertising weekly for some time in the Exchange and Mart, offering to install on your PC software called a Pokerbot.

They claim, that once installed, it will enable the user to win at online Casinos with the “Robot” playing automatically.

This is not cheap, with cost of £2250.00 for the software and the installation, they are also looking for 10% per month of your winnings.

They also include an agency for this sum with a commission payment of £500.00 for every new client signed up.

The company goes by the name of JPG Software or The Software Development Agency

37b New Cavendish Street
London
W1G 8JR

Have you ever heard of them?”

My reply was:

“I haven’t heard of this company before I’m afraid and I would be rather sceptical of their claims.Let me ask about this in the next newsletter and I will see if anyone else has any info.”

Looking a little further into this particular opportunity, I found that the advert says:

“The Daily Mail tested this software…”

It doesn’t say that the Mail found the software to work but simply that it “tested” it.

The report on the Daily Mail’s site basically says that someone called Dave set up two computers in their office so that they could run this bot.

It doesn’t say whether this Pokerbot is the same one as advertised in the Exchange and Mart however.

What they found was that the bot made £40 over the course of one day. Not a bad return but completely unethical!

Why the two PCs?

Well, the casino’s poker software reads your hard drive to make sure that you are not using software like this.

Because of this you have to run the pokerbot on a laptop and then network this laptop to the PC which is running the casino software.

That’s why you need the engineer to come round to install the software, I assume.

The whole story can be found here:

You’ll never beat poker robots

I’d be very interested to hear any feedback about this particular opportunity.

Have you ever used any Pokerbot software like this?

Did it work?

Did you get caught?

At the moment I am doing an experiment with a new product and trying to drive as much traffic as possible to the sales page.

In order to try and drive this traffic I am posting articles to specific directories.

The idea is that I get 10 articles about a specific subject onto article directories where they will be indexed by the search engines and also picked up by webmasters.

So tonight I decided to watch some vintage footage I have of Jim Edwards explaining how to write articles.

The DVD is 2 hours long so I managed to make 9 pages of notes on the subject. It was pretty exhausting but will be well worth it.

As Jim explained, imagine you publish an article which is picked up by 100 sites who each send 5 visitors per day. It’s over-simplified, I know, but on average it could work out to about 500 visitors per day.

500 visitors a day is 182,500 per year. That’s a lot of traffic from just one article. Plus, providing your article is related to your product, it is also qualified traffic – the very best kind.

To drive the same amount of traffic via Pay Per Click advertising would cost $18,250 at $0.10 per click.

Anyway, a couple of hours after finishing the DVD, and with an aching hand, I receive an email from Martin Avis.

Martin has just released a new report called:

‘You CAN Write Articles’

Great… absolutely brilliant…

Fantastic timing Martin, thanks for that!

Wait for me to make a load of notes and then release the shortcut two hours later!

Anyway, I grabbed a copy and sat down to read it, and this is exactly the kind of thing I need to be able to increase the quality of my articles and, hopefully, get some serious traffic to my site.

OK, this report is brand new, 43 pages long and gets to the point. There’s no padding, Martin gives you everything he knows about writing great articles.

The topics covered include:

* 12 different types of article, and which three are the best for beginners to start with.

* A foolproof template that makes writing How-to articles a snap.

* A multipurpose template that takes all the guessing out of planning any article.

* The 5 vital elements that can make or break your articles – and how to get them right every time.

* 9 pointers for writing killer headlines that will suck your readers in.

* 5 powerful ways to end your articles for maximum effect.

* The 5 myths about article writing that you must ignore.

* 6 rules for writing articles that people will love to read

Check it out at:

[link no longer active]

Now, a report like this from a specialist like Martin really should sell for $29 to $49 but he has decided to sell it for just $7.

Yes, at today’s exchange rate that’s only about £3.80.

It’s ridiculously inexpensive and so I recommend that you grab a copy while you can.

If you want to get people to visit your site then it really is a must.

Just go here:

[link no longer active]

You won’t regret it!

Best regards,

Ben

Just yesterday I received 2 identical sales letters for Andrew Reynolds’ Cash On Demand monthly subscription course.

I think one was because I am on Vince Stanzione’s mailing list and the other was sent to a different address, obviously from a different mailing list I am on.

If you haven’t got this or you don’t know much about Andrew Reynolds, here is a quick history:

Andrew ran Manhattan Direct for several years but recently wound up the company to sort of “semi-retire”. Over the time he ran this company he built up a massive customer database and was extremely successful.

So, the Cash On Demand system describes what he did and what he learnt from his time running his Manhattan Direct company.

When you sign up you get the 1st module and some extra bonuses absolutely free. Then, should you wish to continue, you pay just less than £30 a month to receive each module.

Each course module is a printed A4 manual which is delivered to your door. Occasionally you also receive extra, unannounced, bonus items which relate to the content of that month’s module.

Andrew mentions 5 people in the sales letter who took the system and made it work. I know who 2 of them are and I know that the claims are true. With one particular “student” that he mentions, I think he may have understated the earnings.

As for “Simon from Kent”, I know who this is and I 100% believe his testimonial.

But, that is all I am saying 🙂

So, the Cash On Demand system is a workable system and practical to apply. Whether you will be successful or not depends on if you follow it and put in the work necessary to make a success of it.

One subscriber asked me this week:

“Do you know anyone that has tried this system?”

So, I would like to throw this one open and ask for information about your experiences with Andrew’s system.

Have you tried to put into action what Andrew teaches?

Have you had any success?

Please leave your comments on the post by clicking the “Comments” link below.

See also:

Andrew Reynolds and the Cash On Demand System