Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes

We all give away a free report or eBook as a bribe to make people sign up for our mailing lists. And what happens? People don’t even care to get it. They are so used to being served junk or only partly usable stuff that they don’t care about your free offer.

After all – free isn’t really free. They have to give you their name and email, and sooner or later, they know that you’re going to pitch them for some sales.

Nothing is free.

They also have to spend time reading your report, or at least the beginning, until they figure out what’s in it for them, and if you’re really offering them something of value, or just the old rehashed PLR report.

If you plan to offer something of value as a back-end product, why not give away something of real value that the receiver will immediately accept as being a waoooh offer?

And if you at the same time could make them remember you at least once a week?

This can be done, but it has a price, of course. You cannot just collect a bunch of free PLR, or jot down a report in an hour. You must cough up some real money and buy embroidered shirts, T-shirts or coffee mugs, keyrings or something else. It’s not even that expensive. Listen to this…

The Law of Reciprocity

Watch this short video (3:09), and think about the message in it. No, I’m not talking Jew vs Christian. There’s another message I want you to get:

Did you watch it? Did you figure out what the message was? Who felt bad in the end of the video?

Well, in fact they probably both did, but I bet that he felt worse than her, because SHE gave a very nice and valuable present, and he gave cheap stuff.

When normal people are given a present, they want to give something back. It’s in our nature.

This is why we offer something for free to our list. First of all, so they can see for themselves what wonderful things we have to offer, and second, to make them feel like giving us something back (like buying our stuff, just to say ‘thanks’).

And when you give them something they consider of little value (like a sock or a rehashed PLR report, written by some unknown student in a far away country), they don’t feel like giving you anything back. Actually, they will feel that they’ve already given you too much – their time, and their email.

So if you plan to sell something high-priced, you can start out on a good relationship with your prospect by offering them huge value.

Give Away Real Objects

If you can afford the small startup investment, you can make a big difference and really stand out in your prospects eye, by offering them tangible goods.

This place can make several objects on demand, like t shirt screen printing with our own design, as well as other items. I saw a nice Chronicle Spiral Notebook for as low as $1.59.

Of course, doing this would be an investment. You shouldn’t do it, if you plan to only offer $5 reports and your highest traffic ever was 5 visitors in one day. But if you plan on selling higher-priced products, this will work wonders for you.

Reading time: 2 – 3 minutes

Affiliate network with high pay outs and high-priced products are always in demand. So when I got contacted by Blue Global Media to write about them, I found it interesting.

To be honest, this is not the kind of Affiliate network I would use myself. Why not?

Simply, because they specialize in financial products like loans and credit reports. I don’t recommend people to get in debt.

Anyway, for test reasons, I went ahead and signed up.

Less than 24 hours later, I received an email from them, saying:

Hi Britt,

We are sorry but your application has not been approved at this time.
If you are a genuine affiliate and you want to be part of our network but feel your application was turned down unfairly, please contact us by telephone at 001-915-654-1230

Thank you,
The Admin Team

I’ve discovered that this is a normal procedure with the CPA networks. If you want to join, you must call them. Well, I don’t want to call them from my mobile phone from Israel, so I just answered by email. But if you’re serious about getting in, give them a call, and tell them how you intend to promote them; how many years you’ve been working as an affiliate; how many daily visitors you have; and all that kind of stuff.

Seen from the outside, the site is very well organised and easy to find your way around. You can even – before joining – see what their top-performing offers are. I liked that.

They also offer things that I couldn’t see, like a Payday affiliate program – I’m just sent back to the front page, when I try the link.

But if you’re interested in earning up to $100 per lead, and you don’t mind promoting credit cards and loans (I do mind, but that’s just me), then I would go ahead and check this place out.

Reading time: 2 – 4 minutes

As an Internet marketer you’re probably interested in web hosting. I know that I am. Since we bought our first domains back in 1997, we’ve tried several hosting companies. Some never managed to host our domains, even though they took our money. Others did for a while, until we got so tired of their service (or lack of it) that we switched.

We stayed with one particular French web host for several years. His service and product were excellent, but the price was too high. We paid $100 per month for 2.5GB.

Anyway, finding the right web host is one of your most important tasks.

I’ve been asked twice to write about a web hosting rating site that contacted me. The first time, I declined, but when they asked me again today, I thought… why not. My readers should be able to learn something from this blog post.

There’s no doubt about it – these guys have done an excellent job on the design of the site. It looks very professional. And you don’t have to spend time searching for information. It is all presented very nicely right in front of you.

In one look, you can see who is ranking as number 1, 2, 3… 7, then you have to scroll to watch further down.

You can easily search through the host catalogue by choosing region, type or price.

When it comes to the ranking sites, it seemed a bit odd to me, though. I can see that the highest ranking has 5 stars – coming from 72 reviewers.

Number 2 ranking has 4.8 stars, coming from 304 reviewers. It’s a site I’ve never heard about, by the way, just like the highest ranking.

HostGator (my favourite) has only gotten 4.5 stars and only 4 reviews. Weird. You can see their HostGator reviews here. Notice how one of the reviewers doesn’t give any stars for customer support, and another one only 4 stars. I’ve rarely seen as good customer support as HostGator offers, at least not beside the one we paid $100 per month for 2.5GB with.

Even BlueHost (I recommend that you stay away from them) has only received 8 reviews. I would have thought that those two well-known hosts should receive more than 12 reviews together, especially compared to the two highest ranking, to me unknown hosts that have 380 reviews together.

So my overall impression is that this is a nice site, but I have a hard time believing that it’s as independent as they claim.

What do you say? Do you find their reviews and rankings convincing?

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

I’ve always taught my students to get a copy of the product they review, before they recommend anything to others. And to be honest, of course.

While this holds true to info-products (in my opinion), I find it ethically okay to do reviews of more expensive physical products without owning it yourself. You still have to be honest, and you might want to purchase the product later.

If you’re hoping to earn money on Amazon, and you go for the higher priced objects, you’re likely using a reporting review style, reporting what other people say about the product, and writing down pros and cons based on the technical information, you can read about the product.

On Warrior Forum, I’ve seen several people claiming to be making a good living that way. But their income might be threatened.

In a moment, I’ll show you a list of 30 ways consumers use to spot fake online reviews. There are some that I don’t agree with, but does that count? If consumers consider a review fake for using some of these means, then I cannot argue with them.

How Many of the Following “Errors” Are You Committing?

According to this article in Time, there are at least 30 ways to spot fake online reviews, and you’re probably guilty of using more than one of those.

If you’re writing review articles about Amazon products, you’re probably writing about Excellent Gadget-Dingy CC-XYZ10454332 from SUPER-COMPANY, aren’t you?

I mean, how else can you make the search engines understand that you’re writing about this product? No search engine will understand “the nice gadget that Super-Company came out with a couple of months ago. The blue one with square corners and digits on top.”

And even the consumer will not feel absolutely certain about which product you’re reviewing. The CC-XYZ10454332 or the BB-XYZ10454332, since they came out just about the same time, and they both are blue with square corners.

Just a Small Rant about Fake Reviews

A short while ago, I wrote a 1 Star review on Amazon for the game Star Wars The Old Republic.

Frankly, I was furious about having wasted $209 on two copies, shipped to Israel. The game sucked! Bugs, bugs and more bugs, and after a few hours play, boring, boring, boring.

But that’s not what I want to rant about. The thing is that after I’ve posted this review, I got a lot of hate-comments from people calling me a noob, claiming that I’ve probably never played a MMORPG (I’ve been playing daily since 2008), and used all sorts of personal attacks.

After a few comments like that, I stopped following them, but before I left, I wrote that I thought they were paid to write like that. (You can get people on Fiverr to do almost anything for money.)

Another client on Amazon wrote a comment in my thread, saying that he’d noticed that all negative reviews of SWTOR were voted down.

Well, with a buggy, lousy, stinking game like that, they probably need to pay a lot of people to down-vote the negative reviews.

The positive reviews mostly stated “facts” like “best game ever”, “fantastic game”, etc.

What Then? No More Review Writing?

What will you do about this? Stop writing reviews about products you don’t own? Or stop writing the full product name and number, each time you mention the product?

I don’t think there’s an easy solution to this.

Personally, I hope that more consumers open their eyes to this problem of fake reviews. Some are SO obvious that it almost hurts, like: “Is product XYZ a scam? Read my review before you buy.”

Yeah, right!

But what about taking the journalistic point of view, referring to other people’s honest opinions? Taking time to gain knowledge about what benefits it could mean that a product has “Escalleribated Schmoks”? (I just made that up.) Is that bad?

What do you think?

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

Many people are looking for an AdSense alternative, and there can be several reasons for that:

• They had their AdSense account closed.
• Some of their sites aren’t bringing in AdSense income.
• They don’t want to have AdSense on specific sites.
• Their AdSense income has gone down.

You might have noticed that I’ve never had any AdSense ads on this blog, for instance. No? Ah… but well, I haven’t. And that was on purpose.

Since everybody can create AdWords ads, this blog could end up having an advert for a product I definitely not recommend. And you would think that I had placed that advert there.

No way!

So no AdSense on this blog, so until now I just didn’t have any ads, or only the odd advert for Hostgator or something.

Then entered this little – free – plugin that can be a game-changer. Why?

Let’s look at WHY AdSense got so popular in the first place.

What Made AdSense So Popular?

If you’d tried to maintain a blog or website BEFORE AdSense, you know why.

One day, you got your banner code, put it online on your 714 articles, and then the next day, you received a message about this campaign no longer running.

Remove all 714 banner codes; find a new; put them online, etc. etc.

HARD WORK – no, maybe not hard, but time-consuming and BO-O-RING!

AdSense works in a quite different way. You put ONE code online, and depending on the words you have in your articles, you get served the right ads. Those adverts used the context to figure out what people would be interested in clicking on.

No more tedious, boring work – only money streaming in.

What to Do If You Don’t Want to or Can’t Use AdSense

If you didn’t want to use AdSense, you had little choice. It was back to the boring banners, or you could try your luck with Yahoo ads, if you wrote in English.

A few days ago, that became a situation of the past, because of a new, free, plugin that serves you ads depending on what tags you use for your blog posts.

Contextual ads, not necessarily related to AdSense.

The plugin is called Related Ads and it’s free. I don’t know why, because it could easily be priced $97 in my opinion. I love that they don’t even write that on their page, by the way. I hate that kind of hype, but I hope you don’t mind that I say it here.

Anyway, you install the plugin, and you create an ad group. To each ad group, you can have several ads. You can then show those ads in widgets, or directly in your blog posts by adding either the short code, they provide you with, or the php code.

But when you go to the site, you can see the short video that will explain it all: => http://relatedadsplugin.com/download/foxladi

This AdSense Alternative Has the Following Benefits

I’ve copied a little bit of text from the plugin’s page and added my comments between brackets:

About this AdSense Alternative – What Are The Benefits Of Related Ads?

• Manage All Your AdSense Placements (you can even chose to show AdSense in some posts and products in other posts to optimize your income).
  
• Put Targeted Ads On Any Post Or Page Widget (this is a brilliant feature, because you can use your tags to target the best ads related to your posts).
• Display Optin Forms On Any Post Or Page Widget (maybe you don’t want an advert but an optin form related to your post? this plugin takes care of it).
  
• Insert Ads/Optins Using Short Codes Or PHP (this allows you to put specific ads inside your blog posts, if you want).
• Import/Export ALL Your Affiliate Ads From One Blog To Another (this saves you time – you can set up the system once and use it on other blogs).
  
• Sell Advertising On Your Site Based On Tags! (Funny thing here – I just mentioned that to my husband yesterday, when he put this plugin on one of his pages, and last night we were approached by somebody who wanted to pay for advertising on his site).
• Display Any Kind Of Related Content Via Widgets (that leaves the choice completely up to you).
• And More Uses We Haven’t Even Thought Of Yet (and me neither, hehe).
  

Let me know what you think about this AdSense alternative in the comments.

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

If you’re after easy content for your website, take a look at these three ways to get it.

All three ways are either totally free for you, or will only cost you a minimum. Let’s get started.

Why You Should Get (Easy) Content for Your Website

Have you ever tried to launch a website with only one text on it?

While some gurus claim that they make millions with such sites, I’ve never experienced it myself.

What I have experienced, though, is that sites with lots of content consistently bring me an income – even years after I’ve stopped working on those sites.

Content is king. No, GOOD content is king. The more valuable content you can put on your website, the better.

Why Easy Content for Your Website Often Is Better Than Putting a Lot of Energy Into It

Let’s face it! We all only got 24 hours per day, and we spend some of those hours sleeping. Other hours go with trivial tasks like bathing, washing up, washing clothes, cooking, shopping, etc.

If you on top of that have a day job, this will leave you just with one or two hours per day to do Internet business.

Are you spending hours writing your blog posts? That can be fine, but if you want more content for your website, you should also look for easy content once in a while.

This will help your website grow faster, gain more authority, and make more money.

Easy Content for Your Website – Method Number One: Article Directories

syndicated articles – easy content for your websiteArticle directories are meant for syndication of articles. That means that you can use other people’s articles as content for your website.

One condition is that you add the author’s resource box, which means you’ll get an outbound link from your site to his.

You should only use this option once in a while, if you want to make money with affiliate products from your own site. If you have AdSense or other adverts on your website, it’s fine to use this kind of content. You should be aware of the fact, though, that you’re not getting unique content this way.

Easy Content for Your Website – Method Number Two: Guest Blogging

If you want unique content for your website the simple way, you could invite people to write articles for you. If your website is a blog, this is called “guest blogging”, but even if you have an HTML style homepage, people can add their articles to your site.

Just like when you use articles from article directories, you should allow them to add their resource box or at least a link to their own website from the article.

How do you attract guest bloggers?

As your blog or website grows, this becomes easier, because people will contact you themselves and ask to be allowed to write for you.

But when you are still growing your website, you might use other methods.

A while ago, I came up with a system that worked very well. Several writers joined my sites regularly, and they all reported back that they were very happy about this system.

You can find it on my site: Fresh’n’Free Unique Content System

You can even get it totally free, if you join Wealthy Affiliates through my link.

Easy Content for Your Website – Method Number Three: PLR

PLR is a perfect way to get easy content for your website.

Stop: I’m not talking about just smashing it up as it is. You should either rewrite the PLR articles, or transform them into a video, or do something else with it.

If you just use PLR as it is, you risk that several other people already have it on their website with the exact same wordings.

A few months ago, we started our own PLR Store, and the PLR articles we sell from our PLR Store are professionally proofread; they contain paragraphs and bullets; they have a high word count.

We have repeating customers, which tells it all.

If you don’t see the articles, you want there, let me know what keywords you were looking for. The site offers a form you can use, so nobody else will know what your special niche is.

This rounds it up – there are of course other ways to get easy content for your website, but I picked the ones, I found easiest to apply immediately.

Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes

From time to time, you’ve probably seen those emails telling you about a great course that a small group of people has paid $1,000 to attend to. Now you can get it for only $10, but you have to act fast, because it’s about to be taken down, etc. etc. (Read: A lot of the usual Internet marketing cliches.)

I don’t know about you, but my first thought is always: “Yeah, right!”

If I were one of those people, who sat there with smiles permanently attached to their lips, listening to some guru, telling them how they should run their business (sometimes even making it up on the spot), and if I’d paid $1,000, I would feel cheated.

At first glance, this looks so unfair!

Why should I pay $1,000, when you can get the same thing for a fraction of that price?

Well, there is an important reason why it might be better to pay more to get the product. No, it has nothing to do with getting your hands on it before everybody else. It’s more significant than that. It can all be narrowed down to one single word:

Commitment

A couple of years ago, I was one of those clients who got the $2,000 course for $4.95 plus shipping, and while I never made any income from it, there were proof that showed that the original clients did.

How come? What’s the difference?

Well, of course, they could ask the guru questions, and they were also able to use the idea before the rest of us.

But the biggest difference between them and me was commitment. They invested $2,000, which is an amount of money that most people find important. The money I spend could get me a bus ticket home. If I made my “investment” back, well, nice. If not, well, no problem.

They, on the other hand, would probably have a lot of explanations to do to their spouse, if they had thrown out a couple of thousand dollars out of the window, just to feed their dreams.

So they were bound to take action. They had to make the investment back many times over.

Notice, we’re talking about the same product. The information, we received, were the same. The conditions were different. And they made a huge commitment. They were forced to make money.

Therefore, if you really want to make money, or if you really want to learn a new skill, make sure you make a commitment. Don’t go after the free class online. You’ll probably attend the first two-three times, and then you’ll figure you can “always continue another day”. That other day will never occur.

Invest in yourself. Invest in knowledge. That’s what the big guys in Internet marketing do.

Reading time: 2 – 4 minutes

When I play Rift (a great MMORPG, try it for free), and I kill monsters and beasts and other players, I often aquire the loot they drop. This can be old boots, cloth, coins, notebooks, and all kinds of junk.

You know what is really great about an online game like that? There are vendors that will take your junk and pay you money for it!

Wouldn’t it be nice if that could happen in real life, as well?

Think about it: Going down to the supermarket with bags full of used paper clips, warn out shoes, swimming suits that shrimped in the closet, used cinema tickets… and then having them pay you money for your junk?

Well, unfortunately real life doesn’t work like that. If it were, you could just raid the nearest trash can and grow rich.

This blog post is not about selling junk. It’s about how you and other people consider things that are free.

List Building – Do You Give Away A Free Gift? Great! But People May Not Think It Really Is Free

We’ve all read somewhere that in order to get people to sign up for our lists, we have to give them something for free.

This could be a free report, an eBook, a video, or something like that.

Great!

And then people will jump up and down in excitement and join our lists, right?

Nah… Earlier, maybe. Many years ago, free stuff wasn’t available all over the internet. Today, it is. And free is no longer free.

If you get an eBook or report for free, it’s true, you don’t pay money for it. But you pay with something just as valuable: Your time.

Your potential list members are well aware of that.

They know that if they fill out your form and give you their name and email, it would cost them:

1: Time to read whatever free product you’re giving away, or worse – watch your videos (takes longer time than reading).

2: Space in their inbox for all the pitches you’re going to make to get them to buy your stuff.

This is a steep price to pay. Are your product really worse it?

Show It To Them – Show How Valuable Your Free Gift Is

Today, it’s no longer enough to tell people that they will get a free gift.

You must explain to them, WHY it’s important that they get your gift and read/watch it, HOW it can help them, WHEN they should do it (now!), and WHAT would happen if they just leave without getting it.

Make them realize just how valuable your product is, and make sure that they understand that even though you’re giving it away for free, it doesn’t mean that product is cheap. Tell them – no! SHOW them, how valuable it really is.

Can you do that?

How?

Let me know in the comments

Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes

“That was a very precise demand, the beggar over there had“, said my husband, as we were walking home from the little Arabic supermarket in our local area in Haifa.

“What?” As usual, I’d heard nothing. My father had very bad hearing, and I think I’d inherited it. To him, it was probably a blessing, since my mother was very talkative.

“He asked for 4 shekel”, my husband continued. Luckily, he’s used to being my ears.

“Oh, that’s great”, I answered. “He’ll probably make a lot of money that way.”

In Israel, we have 1, 2 and 5 shekel coins. By asking for the exact amount of 4 shekel that beggar was doing a very smart thing.

Like everywhere else, when shopping in stores people would pay with either check or credit card. Only when buying food in the shuk (market) you have to pay cash. So chances are that people have a very few coins in their purse. 1 or 2 shekel, yes, maybe, but not 4. Rather a 5 shekel coin. And who would ask a beggar for changes?

“What kind of country are we living in“, said my husband, “that even beggars are doing marketing?” He laughed.

Well, my answer was that if he wanted to survive as a beggar here, he’d better be smart about his business.

How are you asking for money?

No, I don’t mean that you should be begging for money. Asking for donations are okay for some. I once learnt a smart thing to do to obtain donations, and it worked, too. That scared me, so I removed it again.

I don’t want to receive money from people that way. If you buy my products that’s fine with me. You will learn something and get something in return. But just giving me money? No, thank you, that scares me.

What I meant was: How are you asking for money for your products?

You cannot use the 4 shekel trick, because people are paying virtual money, either through PayPal or with their credit cards.

There are, however, other things you could do.

Numbers ending in 7 have been proved to work. Ask for $7, $17, $47 etc.

Or make the price so low that people will not think twice about purchasing, like $4.95.

The best trick, though, is this:

Are people gaining some kind of value from your product?

Hopefully, you’re answering “yes” to the above question. Compare that value to your price. Even better: Compare both that value to your price, and your price to something that doesn’t give the client any positive value, like a packet of cigarettes, a hamburger, etc.

You will make your prospect feel good about investing in your stuff. Think of the alternative? Now they don’t have to get that extra smoke or the extra fat on their stommach. On the contrary. They’ll get something valuable that will improve their lives.

Got it?

Great! Now as a token of your gratitude, please send me 4 shekel. LOL

Reading time: 9 – 15 minutes

In this Digital Access Pass review, I’ll go through my experiences with this script and the founders, co-founders and the company’s service

Digital Access Pass (DAP) is a PHP and MySQL based membership script. You can use it to handle payments; subscribing and unsubscribe members; drip feed content; and if you have PayPal Pro (costly) you can also use it as a shopping cart. You can use it as a plugin to WordPress or as a stand-alone product.

That’s the features of DAP. Now, let’s take a look at the benefits and especially the drawbacks of Digital Access Pass. I want you to keep reading so you can be prepared, should you decide to purchase DAP.

Ravi Jayagopal – A Long Time Acquaintance

Several years ago, I bought a webmaster script package from Ravi Jayagopal. It was way before you could just buy a standard script to handle automatic delivery of electronic goods.

I used this script together with another script that would encrypt my PayPal buttons to avoid theft. It worked, but I had to do a lot of manual work. However, like I said: Back then you didn’t have much choice, so I was quite happy with the product.

I recommended it to two other persons that I saw asking questions on a PayPal developer forum. I had joined the affiliate program, so I earned a 50% royalty. Several months later, I remembered this and asked Ravi to pay out. He did so very quickly afterwards. I didn’t think much of the situation back then, since affiliate programs were in their youth as well.

Then Ravi wrote a book and asked if anybody would review it. It turned out that you had to buy the book (in print) to review it, so I wasn’t interested.

After that, I did a review of a WordPress plugin for him (a contact form), and then he came out with his first version of Digital Access Pass. He offered beta testing copies with no updates. I said that I would like to review it, but since it would demand a lot of work to do so (installing, testing, installing updates, etc.) I thought he should offer free life-time updates.

He said ‘okay’. So I got access in October 2008.

Do I have this conversation in writing? I think so, yes, but probably on a harddisk somewhere in the basement, so I’m not going to spend time looking it up. I trust my memory on this point as well as others, you’ll learn about shortly.

My First Experience With Digital Access Pass – Good And Bad

Like I wrote in an earlier post, I had some trouble making DAP work the way it should. And since I was in no direct need to use it, I just stopped. A couple of years later, they offered an iPad as a reward for promoting DAP.

Well, I didn’t have access to any downloads anymore. So I wrote, and the staff told me that since I’ve only sold one lousy copy of their product, they had stopped my access. Well, not in those words, but you can see for yourself here: http://getmoneymakingideas.com/pics/Ravi-Mail.png

Please note, how they twist my words from “It would seem fake to promote something I don’t use” to “But if you won’t promote DAP unless we give you a free copy, then unfortunately, we’re going to have to pass on your offer.“

I wasn’t asking for a free copy. I already got a “free” copy, when I did the beta testing, and I was promised life-time updates.

And oh yes, I’ve been promoting the script actively, and a lot of users downloaded it, but what can I say? Members of my list are not rich guys, who can just throw in $200 – $300 in a script. I thought to begin with that the script was too expensive, but my opinion was ignored.

Nevermind. I chose not to pursue and didn’t promote DAP.

Why Did I Choose To Purchase DAP In August 2011?

After all these negative experiences, after getting the impression that Ravi is somewhat stingy, and after noticing that the affiliate royalty is only 30% (RAP and other scripts offer 50%), why did I choose to buy Digital Access Pass in August 2011?

My husband wanted a membership site, and we’ve set it up with the Profits Theme. Unfortunately, there was a problem with this theme, and all our subscribers were unsubscribed by the script. Voupti! Out you go!

This bug had been repaired, but we were on our way to Israel, so I didn’t have time to take care of it. Months later, I found out that I couldn’t just set up an extra product and offer our clients to get back, where they left. So I decided to look for a membership script.

My first choice was WP Sales Automator. I got this script for free (with life time updates), but it sells for only $10, and the founder provides excellent service! Really! Even to those who got the script for free. He’s even created some special features just for me at a time I needed them.

However, this script couldn’t handle drip feeding, and I would have to purchase an affiliate addon to make that part work.

I also considered the addon to Rapid Action Profits, but I was lazy. Using that would mean that I had to install RAP on this new site as well. So the third alternative was DAP.

Buying and Installing DAP

Purchasing and installing DAP went smoothly.

Even though I hate watching videos and prefer to read a product manual, I watched the videos to learn how to install the script correctly, and how to set up the membership products and customer area.

I thought I had it all right, but somewhere along the line, I must have missed a detail.

I wasn’t about to know anything about that before the end of the 30 day’s refund guarantee period.

Oh, Oh… It’s Friday Afternoon and A Client Lost Access To His Content in Our Digital Access Pass Membership Site

Friday afternoon, a client paid for his second month, only to discover that he still didn’t have access to the content. Not even the content he paid for the last month.

I checked, but I had no idea why his data hadn’t been updated by the script. Yes, he paid. Yes, the script had registered that he paid. However, his access period wasn’t updated, so he only got a blank screen. No products at all.

I contacted support right away. They only work from Monday – Friday according to their home page, but I hoped that my urgent problem could catch somebody’s attention anyway.

As you will see shortly on the attached photo, my ticket actually arrived a couple of hours before the end of their business week, but I only got a reply the following day.

I got several possible reasons for why their script didn’t work for some of our clients: that I should use 31 days as a period instead of 30; if I’d followed their guidelines closely etc.

I replied ‘yes’.

Then I was asked to make a test purchase (again – I already did, before I relaunched the site). I said ‘no’.

Doing a test purchase would mean that I had to delete the test user (which I didn’t know how to do); transfer money to my secondairy PayPal account (which would cost fees); do another test purchase and send the log file to Digital Access Pass.

I simply didn’t have the time to do all this, and besides, I was convinced (and it turned out that I was right) that this was unnecessary work.

Which I told them.

Then no further replies from them.

Two days passed, and I wrote again. I said that I wasn’t impressed by their service (answering only about once every 24 hours; giving me unnecessary tasks; asking the same questions that were already answered), and I was told that I was “nasty and rude”.

Well, so be it. I’m a bitch. I expect to get a minimum of service, when I purchase a script to $297. And if telling a company that offers lousy service that I’m not impressed is being “nasty and rude”, then again … So be it!

The problem might be solved. I was told that I should have put “30″ in the “Second trial” field. I’d written “0″, since I had no second trial period.

This, of course, still doesn’t answer the question: Why did it work for some of our clients?

I’m not going to ask. Neither about another problem I have with formatting the results in the script. I’m not going to expend myself to that kind of service again.

I should have bought Rapid Action Press or have given a damn about drip feeding content (which I could have done with AWeber).

Lesson learnt – again! I should have listened to my intuition that told me that if somebody is stingy (in my opinion), and doesn’t keep his word (in my memory), then I shouldn’t do business with them.

Oh, by the way, you can see the whole ticket thread here – I put it online so you can see for yourself how “nasty and rude” I am

http://GetMoneyMakingIdeas.com/pics/dap-support-ticket.jpg

Digital Access Pass Review – My Final Words

I realize that I have no proof at the moment about the promise about the life time updates, when I beta tested Digital Access Pass.

I realize that you might think I am a bitch, and that I should just have done the costly, time-consuming and unnecessary tests, they asked from me.

In that case, please go ahead, try your luck with Digital Access Pass.

But if you believe me and want to save yourself from wasting time and having a bad experience, take one of the two other products, I recommend, either WP Sales Automator (really sympatic programmer behind this one) or Rapid Action Press (I haven’t tried it, but I love Rapid Action Profits, and Sid is the personification of good customer service).

But I care about you – the readers of my blog; my list members… I’ve recommended DAP earlier, and I wanted to correct this mistake. I wouldn’t want anybody to get back to me and tell me that he/she bought it, because I recommended it, and that now they’ve had bad experiences with it.

Hopefully the script will work without problems, expecially after August next year, because I’m only getting updates so far. But if it doesn’t, I don’t want to feel guilty that others bought because of my recommendation.

UPDATE: I got a refund, although the 30 days had passed. Obviously, after I received the message, I no longer have access to Digital Access Pass, although I have to wait several days, before I can see the money back on my bank account and, technically, can buy a new script

Yeah, well, I kind of expected that after the service they deliver

Even more surprising… When I checked our MySQL database to export the users (easier than just using the screen dump I took, because I suspected that DAP would cut my access), I discovered that all our users passwords were in clear text!

Woah!

Good to know, if you should ever join a membership site that is powered by Digital Access Pass – you’re leaving your password open for the administrators to read.

Therefore this honest Digital Access Pass review.