Here’s what Linda emailed me today, “Hi Nate: Thanks so much for the referral to Vistaprint. We just received our first order and they’re exactly the same as we’ve been ordering from our prior supplier – but at almost 25% of the price. Wow, that’s 75% off!!! We do a full bleed, glossy business card and are so sold on Vista Print that we’re now excited about having them print other marketing materials. – Linda”

We’ll here’s the unreal deal like I said, a FREE one!

Why would Vistaprint give away free customized business cards? It must be a trick right?

Nope. There’s no trick. You don’t have to order anything else. Just get your free cards. Vistaprint knows their cards are so good that, when the give away a free stack of them to business owners like Linda at Aloha Kine, they are confident that the business owner is going to be a new client for life. Was it worth giving away a free stack of cards? Absolutely.

I found the banner below and put it in this blog post so you can get your free cards.

Give ‘em a shot, it’s free.
On a side note, I honestly don’t know how long this offer is going to last but if the banner is still down there, click it and jump on the offer before Vistaprint takes it down. . . here it is ↓↓↓↓

Getting paid for giving away things for free? Sounds fishy right? It’s not.

It’s called CPA marketing. No, not Certified Public Accountant, it stands for Cost Per Action.

Let me make an example to show you how it works.  Company ABC knows that if they give away 5 samples of their product or service that, statistically, one of them will turn into a long term customer and make the company $200 per year.  So, Company ABC is willing to pay people like you and me $10 every time we send someone to their website and they order a free sample.

The math is easy.  Company ABC gives $10 to each its 5 affiliates who each sent one person to the website to sign up for a free sample. One of the free samplees becomes a customer bringing the company $200. And in the end, the company nets $150.  So, the more free samples the company gives away, the more money they make, and the more money the CPA affiliates make.

It’s not tricky or fishy, it’s just affiliate marketing on steriods! And, you get paid whether or not your referral every buys anything. All they have to do is take a free sample and you get paid. Traditional affiliate marketing pays you when a sale is made. CPA marketing pays you when your lead takes an action as simple as entering their name and email on a form.

The problem is “just anybody” can’t become part of these CPA networks. You had to “be somebody” in the marketing world to join them…until now.

Affiliate Jump is a CPA affiliate network that is open to the public.
Yes! I am a member of Affiliate Jump.

Interested? Click this banner to watch a free video about CPA marketing:

Most website owners would like to think that’s the way it works. They play their website like the lottery. . . throw some money in, get a site, and hope the world falls in love with it making the owner insanely rich.

If that’s how you’re going to play the game, save your money for Las Vegas. You probably have a better chance of winning there than online.

Successful websites that generate leads and make money for the owner are planned out meticulously and strategically positioned for success. I know what you’re thinking. . . how?

Well, I used to buy run down houses, renovate, them and resell them. My mentor taught me the secret trick to fix anything. He would say, “How you do you fix a leaking roof? It’s easy! Write a check.”  ”How do you fix a broken foundation? It’s easy. Write a check!”  ”How you to get rid of scary mold? It’s easy! Write a check.”

When he used to say things like that, I would think to myself, “Oh man, I can’t keep writing checks for stuff like that.” But the truth was I had to, and it was was well worth it. I was running a business, and my job was to run the business, not to try and fix the leaking toilets. And the truth is, paying to get things done was always a fraction of what I though it would actually cost.

What’s my point you ask? We’re not fixing houses.

The point is, when you take your business online, treat it like a business and get the right people working on your team. If not, while you’re trying to figure out how to get a video to show up on your website, your wise competitor has already hired the right guy to do it for him, and he can now spend his time where  it matters most, helping his customers and filling orders.

So, the thought quickly permeates the entrepreneur and small business world that websites cost SO much money. Well, if your website isn’t making you sales, it could actually be costing you much more than you even paid to get it built in the first place. The real question is, “How much money is your website costing you?”

Let’s look at  a fictitious scenario that may be all too real for some of you. You may never look at your own website the same way again. Read at your own risk.

Kip the Carpet Cleaner – Kip owns a new small carpet cleaning business. In fact, he bought the best carpet cleaning equipment there was to offer. At first he operated off of word of mouth referrals and did a darn good job. However, after he had cleaned all of his friends and family’s carpets, his well of business leads was almost dried up. So, he decided to look into getting website. His brother-in-law once built a little website for his son’s karate team, and said he’d do it for him cheap. Cheap is what Kip wanted. After all a good businessman gets things cheap right? So, he pays his brother-in-law a couple hundred bucks, and gets his website . . . 4 months later. While he was waiting for his site, Kip had to get a part-time job at the grocery store to make ends meet. Hey, that’s okay, we have to do what we can while we’re building our businesses, right? When he finally got the site, it was nothing special, and looked like those free ones you get with some hosting plans. In fact, it might have been just that, but Kip couldn’t tell, but he paid for it. Well, when Kip got his website, nothing changed. The site was boring, it wasn’t search engine optimized so nobody ever found his business online, and those who he gave his business card to, with his web address on it, went to his website and quickly left, not impressed by his online business-front. Kip kept working at the grocery store and still has some nice carpet cleaning machines out in his shed.

Randy the Rug Magician – Randy also started a carpet cleaning business. Although his equipment wasn’t best money could buy, it was good enough for the average carpet, and he would respectfully decline jobs that he knew he couldn’t handle. Randy had decided to invest his money into a marketing plan that included a professional website that cost him 4x what Kip paid for his. Randy’s plan was to focus on marketing so that he could get a steady stream of customers that would help him pay for the top of the line equipment he desired. So, while Kip was waiting on his brother-in-law to do his website for 4 months, Randy got his professional website in 2 weeks, and started marketing it online immediately. His website was professional, search engine optimized, and built to convert visitors into customers. In fact, when you went online to Google.com and searched for “AnyTownUsa carpet cleaning”, his website came up on the first page of the results. When potential customers went browsing for the right company, Randy’s professional website told his clients that he really knew his stuff and would do a great job. The result, Randy had steady flow of business from his investment in a quality website that was search engine optimized and built to convert visitors into buyers. He quickly was able to upgrade his carpet cleaning machines, and then franchised his operation to neighboring towns.

What does, Kip’s website cost him? Well, it cost him his business.
What does Randy’s website cost him? Absolutely nothing. It’s a money-making lead-generating asset.

What is your website costing you?

Ready to make a change? I can help. Visit my company website here.

For those of you who have been attending my workshops on a regular basis, you know that I often recommend a specific company by the name of GoDaddy for registering hosting and domains. Well, things have changed for me and I have new hosting and domain favorites,  and what are they?

For domains, I recommend NameCheap.

For hosting, I recommend HostGator.

Now, I’ve played with both in the past but over the last 2 weeks I’ve experienced the quick power of both. Why the switch you ask?

Well, don’t get me wrong, GoDaddy is a good company. In my opinion, their customer service for the newbie is unsurpassed. However, here’s what put me over the edge and has me converted to NameCheap and Hostgator:

As some of you may know, my wife has a stand up paddle lessons school. Well, every month we organize a big cleanup where we invite anyone who wants to come, to paddle up the river and gather as much trash as we can from the riverbank and bushes, then bring it back down the river and throw it all away.

The event has been growing in popularity, and yesterday in the local paper, an article was printed announcing the next cleanup, which is this Saturday. The problem was, the article directed people to go to www.anahulucleanup.com for more information. I DIDN’T EVEN OWN THE DOMAIN NAME YET!

A few weeks ago, I registered some domain names with NameCheap and used Hostgator for the hosting, and I had a website live in about 10 minutes from domain registration to uploading the site. I was definitely impressed. Well, in a rush I decided to register the domain with NameCheap, then use my GoDaddy account for hosting. The domain registration and configuration went off without a hitch. Then, I went to GoDaddy to link the domain name to the hosting account hoping it would all come together quickly.

I submitted the request to GoDaddy, and quickly whipped up a crude website just to get something online. Everything was ready to launch and I was still waiting on GoDaddy! I waited at least an hour for it all to go through, and it never happened.

Fed up with waiting,  I canceled the request with GoDaddy, went into my HostGator account to add the domain to my hosting account, and shazzam! The site was live in about 2 minutes! Perfect. And, I was converted.

What does that all mean? If you don’t have the patience to wait on your domain or hosting account changes, like me, I recommend NameCheap to register your domains, and Hostgator for hosting. It’s quick, easy, and changes seem to happen instantly.

Hey, if you’re planning a product launch, you don’t want to be waiting on your hosting account or domain registrar make your site live. You need it now! You don’t have time to wait on GoDaddy to update all the necessary settings for your website.  Go with my new recommendations and you may save yourself a headache. Now I know why GoDaddy has to have good customer service.

On a side note, I also don’t agree with GoDaddy’s marketing plan and would have started moving my business elsewhere for just that. I found my new favorites just in time!

What would you pay for a list like that?

You can get one for FREE. How?

I’ll give you 3 words: AWeber, Facebook, Twitter

More at my workshop on Wed, Feb 17th 5:30-7:30pm in Honolulu, HI.
Get info and register online here.

Social Media can be a powerful tool in your marketing bag of tricks, and it’s FREE! What is social media?  Think of yourself sitting at a little table in a café sipping a hot chocolate with . . . hundreds of millions of people! What would you say? How would you say it? How would you get people to listen to you?

In this workshop you will learn the basics of how to use Facebook and Twitter and how to use them to promote your business. This is not an advanced social media workshop.

In this workshop I will start at ground zero with the basics of using Facebook and Twitter, and then demonstrate how to use it to grow your business. You will learn the essential fundamentals of social media for your business.

Here are some of the questions you will get answered:

What is social media, Twitter, and Facebook? *How much time does it take to use social media?

Can I automate my social media marketing? *What privacy issues are there with social networking?

How can I brand my Twitter background for my business? *Can I advertise on Facebook and Twitter?

How can I find customers using Twitter and Facebook? *How do you share photos on Twitter? What are the demographics of most social media users? What’s the difference between a Facebook Group and Fan Page? How do I create a Facebook page for my business?

I am going to pack in as much as possible in two hours! Come learn the lingo and the how-to of promoting your business through social media.

This workshop has been on our most wanted list for months, so please register early.  If there are specific questions you want to make sure get answered at the workshop,  go to www.nateburgoyne.com/hwbcmedia and let me know.

I invite you to come early to network with other business owners and entrepreneurs, and to get your website and online marketing questions answered. Check in begins at 5:00 PM and the workshop begins at 5:30 PM.

Register today online at  hwbc.org.

If online registration is still open, there are still seats available. Get yours quick. We anticipate this workshop to sell out early.

You wouldn’t believe how many turn-key websites are lying around just waiting to be marketed online. Why don’t I market them myself? I simply don’t have the time. My attention right now is on my private marketing  and web design clients, and I don’t have time to market other websites. So, rather than letting them collect dust, if you want them, they’re yours. And I’m selling them off cheap!

How can learn what they are and get one?

You have to be on my Entrepreneur Hot List!

Last year, I launched the Entrepreneur Hot List and registration was open for only about a week before I closed it. It’s an exclusive list and has been closed ever since, until today!

Today I am opening up registration for the Entrepreneur Hot List, and for a limited time membership is FREE for my blog readers and those subscribed to my newsletter.

How can you join?

Go to www.entrepreneurhotlist.com.

If registration is still open and FREE, you’ll be able to sign up right there and get on the list.

Now, I have to get back to packing up these businesses for you!

Peace. . . I’m back to work.

Are you committed to coming out on top? What will make the difference for your business in 2010? The economy? Wrong! A bail-out bill? No! The FED printing more money? No! The answer is YOU!

In this workshop, web designer and online marketing specialist, Nate Burgoyne is going to blast through the fluff with a “double-barreled marketing shotgun” and show you what really works!

More info and pre-workshop download at http://www.nateburgoyne.com/double-barreled .

Register Online at http://bit.ly/doublebarreled

Register by Phone at 526-1001

Space is Limited. First come, first serve.

Workshop is at the Hawaii Women’s Business Center in Honolulu. http://www.hwbc.org

Got pre-workshop questions, email Nate at nate@nateburgoyne.com or connect through LinkedIn. You are also welcome to comment on this thread.

Nate Burgoyne ( http://www.nateburgoyne.com ) is a web designer and online marketing specialist. He is president of Integrity Online Marketing (http://www.integrityonlinemarketing.com)

We’ve been growing an email list for about a week now and the results have been fantastic. We’re now moving into the next stage of the pre-launch and expect his list to continue to grow in the coming weeks. For those interested, here’s the squeeze page we built that is pulling about a 50% opt-in rate!

That’s right! Almost 50%…. a full 1/2 of all visitors are opting in to the page! How? And extremely targeted launch with a intricately crafted squeeze page.

We started the pre-launch about a week ago at midnight, and by 8:30 in the morning I got a call from Scott, in awe with the response we got in such a short period of time. He sent me an email that said, “Is this for real!?” I replied, “Yes, it’s for real. . . and we’re just getting started.”

Is a 50% opt-in rate possible? Yes! I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the campaign. And for those who want to see the squeeze page, go to www.racehawaiistandup.com/powerglider.

Here’s the proof. The /powerglider/ page is the squeeze page. The only way to get to the preview page is to enter your name and email address and opt-in. Notice 444 views of the squeeze page and 213 views of the preview page. Almost 50%. . . Sweet!!! And the numbers are excellent for the niche market we’re targeting after the first phase of online marketing. I just rolled out phase 2 today, and we have about 5 more pushes before the pre-launch is completely on autopilot.

Here’s a letter I recently received from Scott of Race Hawaii. . .

“If you have a product that needs to be introduced or brought to the market, and your website brought to the forefront of the search engines, I’d like to recommend Nate Burgoyne or Integrity Online Marketing.

I am aware a lot of people are good at web design and are capable in this generation of electronic expertise. Nate not only stands head and shoulders above computer literate web mastering and design competitors, but brings a special talent with the written word to describe and capture the essence of the product.

This has proven invaluable for me in making a new patent pending product known.

Nate and his business relationships fire on all cylinders because he is smart, he listens, and then he creates what is needed.”
Scott Bucknell
RACE HAWAII