We’ll get back to 30 day challenge posts in a couple days. I’m still progressing with that project and I’ve just passed 470 subscribers on that list. I’ve also managed to achieve a cost-per-opt-in of under $1.00. But more about that in my next post…
Today I’m going to pick up where I left off on my monthly income reports…
So I slacked off a little on getting my monthly income report online over the last couple months. I’ve been so busy trying to get all my other business stuff taken care of that it completely slipped my mind. Right now I’m working on launching Beyond The Hype with Josh Bartlett, launching the Offline Client Method with Josh Grillo, redesigning and re-envisioning the WordPress Classroom, as well as running my 30 day challenge here on the blog to see if I can add an extra $1k per month to my business. I’ve been pretty busy…
Due to the fact that I’ve been working on so many projects, sales have slipped on my existing products. I believe this is due to people kind of holding out to purchase stuff until they see the new stuff. Another factor is that Google recently changed their algorithms causing some of The WordPress Classroom’s main keywords to somewhat drop off the results… This has really impacted the traffic flowing through the site… Luckily I’ve rediscovered my love for playing with paid traffic and have been spending the month of May testing and tweaking all sorts of paid traffic techniques (as described in my 30 day challenge).
Since I’ve missed the last 2 income reports, I’m going to cover them both in this report…
Some Quick Disclaimers:
In the spirit of full transparency… I must make a couple of notes about the following income reports.
The numbers that I’m sharing are before any refunds. Some of the products that were sold have 30-60 day refund periods. Seeing as I can’t know who will and won’t refund, refunds are not accounted for.
On the products that I created, the numbers are AFTER affiliates have been paid. These are the net that I collected after I made sure all affiliates received their cut.
Finally, there is some income that I am NOT including in this report. I have a second business with Josh Bartlett. Seeing as this business is a 50/50 partnership, I opted not to share income from this business due to the fact that it would also give insight in to some of Josh’s earnings. Therefore, that aspect of my business will remain out of my reports.
This report is income from the products that I create and the income generating blogs that I have around the net.
I’ll start by giving a breakdown of the income and then finish with some explanation as to why some of the numbers are the way they are.
The Income Report – March 2012
- Income From My Products:
- The WordPress Classroom $5,421.22
- The WP Cash Cow $364.00
- The Marketer’s Classroom $135
- Total (From My Products) $5,920.22
- Income From Affiliate Products:
- Easy Video Player $141.08
- Market Samurai $118.08
- Aweber $41.40
- Autoresponder Madness $22.18
- Optin Skin $21.24
- HootSuite $5.99
- ListJoe $5.00
- Total (Affiliate Products) $354.97
- Adsense $56.15
- Total Income $6,331.34
Some Explanations
As you can see, my income dropped dramatically in March from what it was the two months previous. There are several excuses reasons for this….
I closed down the WP Cash Cow as a WSO. Sales had slowed on the product and the launch buzz had died down. I pulled the product from the Warrior Forum so that I could move it to a normal sales page and sale it like The WordPress Classroom via Clickbank. I’ve yet to set up this sales process due to the other projects I became focused on.
The Marketer’s Classroom slowed in sales on the Warrior Forum as well. Joe and I stopped promoting the product to focus on our main businesses and sales dropped.
I haven’t done a podcast episode in a while. The podcasts actually lead to some decent numbers in affiliate product sales. When I don’t do one for a while, I see affiliate sales begin to drop.
In the coming months, you’ll see me put much more focus in to affiliate marketing. In the months of April and May, you’ll notice that my affiliate commissions begin to climb again as I get back in to really recommending the products that I use to conduct my business.
Sales really stink compared to the last couple months. Luckily (writing this post in May), I can see the future a little bit and I know that April and May I start to get my numbers back up and on track… 
The Income Report – April 2012
- Income From My Products:
- The WordPress Classroom $6,068.85
- The Marketer’s Classroom $27
- Total (From My Products) $6,095.85
- Income From Affiliate Products:
- Membersnap $670.16
- YouTube Revealed $500
- Hostgator $250
- Easy Video Player $218.94
- GoPages Pro $132.20
- Optin Skin $127.12
- Market Samurai $93.12
- OptimizePress $90
- Aweber $46.20
- Build My Rank $27.23 (Closed due to Google changes)
- WP Lapdance $19.95
- Free Blog Factory $15
- Text Message Punch Card $9.39 <— I have no idea what this is (I didn’t promote it)
- Total (Affiliate Products) $2,199.81
- Adsense $56.02
- Total Income $8,351.68
Some Explanations
So you can see that April was a bit better than March. When I post my May income report, you’ll see that May is actually a lot better than April as well. There are several reasons why I’m seeing growth again…
I’ve began to put some focus back in to marketing The WordPress Classroom. I took time away to focus on my new projects but I realized that this is my bread and butter and that I need to put focus back in to marketing it. I’ve started adding more incentives for affiliates to promote the product as well as began to generate a little bit of paid traffic through the site. This has helped resurge the WPC. With the new redesign that’s in process, I plan to see even bigger sales numbers as I anticipate a much better converting sales process.
I also began to put much more focus in to marketing affiliate products. I don’t do it in that stupid spammy kind of way that most marketers do it though… I simply tell people how I do things in my business and then use affiliate links when I mention resources that I use. I don’t do hard sales of affiliate products and it seems to be working out. I don’t promote things that I haven’t looked at myself and used myself.
The way I like to promote products is the way that’s laid out in a product called Autoresponder Madness… You’re basically teaching people how to do things using specific tools. If people use the tools that you recommend, you receive a little commission for referring them. That’s how affiliate marketing was ORIGINALLY intended to work and it’s probably still the most effective way to market affiliate products. Autoresponder Madness was probably the best investment I’ve ever made in to my education on affiliate marketing! (And yes… Those are affiliate links for the product.)
One little funny thing to note about the income report for April is that I made $9.39 from a product called Text Message Punch Card… I never promoted this product and I have no idea what it is. I just received an affiliate commission from this product in my Paypal with no explanation of why… Rather strange but I’m not complaining.
So that’s it… Those are my last two months. Hopefully I’ll get May’s done in a timely manner at the end of the month.
Feel free to comment or ask any questions you’d like. I do my best to answer everyone who takes the time to leave comments.
 Monthly Income Report – November 2012 |  Monthly Income Report – October 2012 |  Monthly Income Report – September 2012 |
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“I don’t do it in that stupid spammy kind of way that most marketers do it though…” An excellent standard to practice. Thanks for standing above the crap.
Thanks Geoff. Affiliate marketing works best if you teach things and then recommend the tools that you use or the training that you learned from. It’s that simple.
Hey Matt,
I’m glad that you’ve posted another income report because they always inspire me to take action. I’m even going to start writing up my own income reports.
Plus I love the plug for for ARM 2.0 … Andre’s stuff ROCKS!
Autoresponder Madness is awesome. Good luck on the income reports. I think they really help keep you accountable.
Always good to see reports like this as it does show that it can be done. I think that the WordPress Classroom is a very good source of income but far short of what I think it is capable of making. Very honestly when you are asking for the kind of money for us to be a part of that membership and you are not giving it your undivided attention, which you are not, then I have a bit of apprehension as to how good the classroom really is. Prime example is that I consider you as an expert on WordPress and yet everyday I get emails on all of these new WordPress plug-ins that come out every single day, yet we do not hear anything from you about them. My point to you on this is that if I am to pay the kind of money you are asking for, I would expect that we would get some kind of review of these plug-ins from you, so that WordPress Classrooms holds the expertise on anything WordPress, but since that is not happening and I have to guess or do it through trial and error as to the value of these plug-ins then it is senseless for me to be a member at this point. Other than that it is highly interesting to see how you and others make their money and the transparency is a wonderful thing.
Hi Paul,
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment and I do appreciate your kind words on my transparency.
However, I really think you missed my point. It’s not that I don’t focus on the WordPress Classroom. It’s that I haven’t focused on marketing the WordPress Classroom as much as I should. The WordPress Classroom still has a minimum of 2 brand new training videos every single week. Week in and week out. The training in the site is the most current WordPress training available. We make new videos when WordPress makes changes.
I don’t review a ton of plugins because there are way too many to review. I teach which plugins are necessary to accomplish the things that people want to accomplish and I’ve reviewed the couple paid (premium) plugins that I think are worth your time. There are so many junk plugins that people try to sell these days. I can’t review all of them.
At a minimum of 8 new videos per month, an active forum where people get their questions answered, a weekly newsletter, and constantly updated videos that get updated when WordPress makes changes, I think people are getting way more than their money’s worth.
Saying that, I have actually turned my marketing focus back to the WordPress Classroom. I’ve got a new layout on the way and a ton of new training in the works. I think everyone is really going to love the changes.
This is such an encouragement! I usually follow the “big players”, so it’s good to see someone coming up. I really believe that you will be another Pat Flynn. You really helped me see that I can make it.
The high numbers of the other guys actually discouraged me. Like I said, you may not be a in the 50k per month, but you ARE on your way there, and with your example, I hope to be there someday too!
Thanks Estevan! Believe it or not, I’ve actually had months as high as $30k in a single month… It’s only happened once or twice for me though. I’m working on making those kinds of numbers a more common occurrence.
Keep in mind that these numbers in my report don’t actually reflect 100% of my income either. I actually have to leave out some income from my business with Josh Bartlett.
Thanks for commenting.
Hey Matt! You’re definitely on the way there. Thanks for being so transparent with your things. Glad to have another people teaching their mistakes and what they learned. Keep it up!
Thanks Miki. I hope people can learn from what I’ve managed to do.
I’m an avid reader of Pat Flynn’s blog and I personally think that his income reports are probably some of the best resources I’ve read. They make great case studies.
Hey thanks for sharing your Report. That ist a nice motivation for my projects. Nice Analyse-Graphic. I have to learn mor about your blog.
Dang Matt,
Seems like you’re doing quite some á-la-Flynn work here man and nailing it all the way!!
Cool to see that WPC gives so much ROI, those are incredible numbers too so congratulations!
Sergio
PS. I just featured you on my latest post, hope you dig the mention.
Hi Matt,
This is really impressive. I’m in the process of developing a service to help entrepeneurs try to have more of what they need at their disposal all in one place for Natural Products launching and nutrition which is what I specialize in. I’d like to be able to have at least 4 or 5 programs like you have displayed that can help assist in people reaching their goals even a little maybe before they start the program, and I’d like to have the one’s you’ve got up plus a couple others for passive commissions to keep the party going.
How can I set those up, and do you have any other suggestions that would be helpful on what other programs are doing a good job for people? I’ve been really frustrated trying to build my list too. I have approximately 1000 people a month visit my site, and my email list is a sickly 72 people, I need to change that fast. All suggestions are appreciated and thank you for such a cool page to review, your work and results are very impressive.
Just at a quick glance, you can improve your opt-ins by offering something for opting-in. I saw that you asked for a name and email but offered nothing in return for me giving it to you… Offer something cool that your viewers would want in exchange for them giving you their email.
I’d also make the opt-in stand out a lot more. Put a box around it with an arrow pointing to it or something. Make the reader’s attention drawn to it.
Just some quick tips from my first glance at your site.
Hi Matt!
Thank you! you rock!!! We’ve got a free product gift build it for opt in’ers and I forgot to list it. And totally I thought the same thing with the arrows and stuff, its’ lagging and medically dispassionate. We’re going to switch that stuff up ASAP. thank you so much for responding to my comment! I LOVE your website!