Traffic
25,187 MikeFromMaine.com page views in December
3,674 iTunes downloads
3,364 Youtube views
37,322 minutes watched
List size
Aweber: 2,214
Social Followers
Twitter: 2,000
Facebook Fans: 300
Expenses
Bing Advertising: $17.34 – Some advertising fees for some CPA ads I was testing out…fail
Aweber: $29 – This is my list building software that allows me to email everyone when there’s a new interview
Host Gator hosting: $50 – I host all my niche sites and this site on multiple hosting accounts
Warrior Forum Ads: $20 – These are fees for advertising my websites for sale in the Warrior Forum
Contest Domination Pro: $30 – I used this to hold the contest in December
Libsyn: $75 – I host my podcast with this so I can put it on iTunes
Theme music: $29.95 – I still haven’t used it yet, but I will
Splasheo Intro: $47 – This is what I do the intro to my show with…great quality for a reasonable price
Adf.ly advertising: $16 I didn’t have good results with this
SafeSwaps.com: $29.99 – This is the membership fee I pay to be able to buy solo ads from people who have been rated by previous buyers
Solo Ads: $1,319.53
Total expenses: $1,663.81
Revenue
Squidoo Cash Tsunami (CLOSED): $241 from interview with Troy Nantais
Adsense Firestorm (CLOSED): $198.55 from interview with Sean Donahoe
The Four Hour System (CLOSED): $107.80 from interview with Anton Kraly
Going Viral on Facebook: $50.68 from interview with Yoel Cohen
GFT Connect: $37 from interview with Bryan McConnahea
Business Turnkey Exponential: $32 from interview with Sarkis Yambestian
Azon Classroom 3.0: $30.10 from interview with Jeff Carson
Wiki Word Plugin (CLOSED): $29.55 from interview with Walt Bayliss
Instant Instagram Profits (CLOSED): $29.41 from Interview with Komsat Keo
Customer Retention Formula: $28.66 from Interview with Chris Reck
Viral Video Course: $26.67 from interview with Barak Hullman
Live CPA Blueprint (CLOSED): $24.60 from interview with Paul Nagel
Photo Traffic Power (CLOSED): $19.98 from interview with Pat Flanagan
Christmas Come Early Deal (CLOSED): $18.02 from interview with Chris Reck
Rebel Mouse Infestation: $5.71 from interview with Jimmy Mancini
Total from interviews: $879.73
Text link ads: $59.50 – I make this income from an old website of mine. It’s pretty consistently around $50/month
SocialAdr: $44.20 – A hands-off way of getting more likes on tweets for your posts
Ezarticle link: $85 – This is reoccurring income from a video tutorial I did about Ezarticlelink HERE
CTR Theme: $30.49 – I suggest both this theme and the Intelli theme for Adsense sites
Whoosh Traffic (CLOSED): $20 – A keyword tracker for monitoring multiple keyword rankings
Contest Domination: $8.92 – A way to easily hold contests
Adsense: $125.19 – I used to make a lot more with Adsense…now it’s just a small amount of my income…good thing I’m diversified
Website sales: $80 – I didn’t sell too many sites this month.
Bluehost: $65 – I had a deal where if you sign up for hosting through my link I would give you a free Adsense niche site. I’ll still honor that if anyone is interested.
Total from OTHER streams of income: $518.30
Total Revenue: $1,398.03
Total Profit: $-265.78
A big loss? What happened?
Not to worry, my friends. I’ve been experimenting with solo ads. If you don’t know what solo ads are you can learn about them in my interview with Jayson Benoit. I spent a total of $1,319.53 on building a bigger audience for the show. What kind of results did I get? I increased my email list from about 800 subscribers to over 2000. It cost a little more than $1 per new subscriber, but for me it was worth it to expand my audience. Will I continue spending like this? Probably not until I have a product that I can sell directly to new email subscribers, as I need a way of recouping the costs.
What can you expect from The Mike From Maine Show?
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the way my show has been going. I’ve received tons of positive feedback from many of you in emails, tweets, and Facebook messages…thank you so much for your support! That being said I still am striving to make my show even more useful for my audience. I was chatting with Joe Magnotti the other day from AdsenseFlippers.com EmpireFlippers.com and he advised me to make the interviews LESS about the guest’s story and MORE about actionable content. This advice really resonated with me as I love their podcast because there’s usually something ACTIONABLE that I take out of each one. For example, I watched this interview on BrightIdeas.co with Andrew Warner the other day, and I asked myself “why did I watch it?” What made me watch THIS ONE and not others? The reason was that there was a skill inside the interview that I wanted to learn about so I could implement it on my own site. Did I want to sit down and watch Trent Dyrsmid and Andrew Warner chat? Nope, I don’t have time for that. I wanted some meat! If I feel this way then most likely others do too.
So expect the general interview format to change a bit in the coming weeks after I’ve published the episodes that I’ve previously recorded. Of course we’ll touch a bit on the guest’s “story” but I’m going to try to use the interviews as a chance to get more actionable content from my guests. I think the result of this transition will be best for everyone as it will narrow down and give an obvious topic for each show.
When I started interviewing back in late September 2012 I never claimed to be an expert. I actually started out with a low-quality webcam which made the videos look pretty bad. I had never done ANY interviews before, so I just attacked the venture with the attitude that I would learn as I go. Well, I’m still learning and striving to give you all the best interviews I can provide while at the same time earning an income through affiliate commissions and sponsorships. I’ve learned a lot in the last four months and in the near future I’m planning on sharing a “How To” for doing interviews with you all. Stay tuned.
Thank you everyone for watching/listening/reading! I couldn’t do it without you!
Thanks!
Mike Thomas
PS Who would you like to see on the show in the future AND what would you SPECIFICALLY like to learn from them? Please let me know in the comments below.
I enjoy your podcasts! I would suggest you interview: Dr. Andy Williams, and Tiffany Dow. I’m curious of all the people selling PLR and if that is still a money making venture. I like how it is pretty passive.
Thanks, Liz. I’ll check those people out. There are a lot of people making a living off of selling PLR…it seems like a great business model.
I like the idea of more actionable content to a certain extent. Too much might make the site too commercial in a bad sense, but definitely add some and I trust your judgment on what the “right” amount is. Continued success.
Mike,
Thanks for the advice. I’ll do my best 🙂
Have you thought about doing less interviews to get more listeners per? I’m not saying it’s a good idea or not, but just wondering what you think…or is that what you are doing already…
Nice work. Keep it up (as if you wouldn’t…ha!)
Jeff,
I’ve thought about doing less interviews, but my thinking is that not all topics will be interesting to all people. By doing five a week I’m able to let my audience pick and choose which ones they’re interested in. Do I expect everyone to watch all the interviews? No. Do some people? Yes 🙂
Mike glad you are taking my advice to heart. I know you will stick with it and things will get better.
Thanks, Joe. Always open to constructive criticism…expect big things 🙂
Hello Mike, been following you since I found you last month. Congrats on the income stream. I have always been an advocate of multiple streams of income. Having only dabble in the way you are making money I have found your site and very open as to mechanics. I really appreciate that since I am from the “baby boomer” generation and consider myself more technologically adept than folks half my age.
I don’t know if you have already done this but may I recommend you post a video explaining why you choose the methods you use to generate the income and how you decided to use them. Thanks again Mike –Gregg from Texas
Gregg,
Thanks for watching 🙂
I’ll definitely post some more videos about the way I make money in the coming weeks/months. I plan on releasing a course on how to do interviews as well.
Hey Mike,
I have also thought it would be interesting to share my income reports, but I just don’t know how much people like to see them or not. I guess it is always nice to see that you are walking the walk, but it is SOOOO much extra work! Hahaha.
Thanks for sharing though! I guess I do like to see!!! 🙂
Bryan
Still think it’s a great month since the money went back as an investment into your business! Really interested to hear more about how you’re acquiring those new subscribers!
Thomas
Thomas,
I’ve been using solo ads to get more subscribers. It’s not cheap, but it’s a quick way to build your list/audience.
I plan on spending upwards of $10,000 on solo ads to build my list over the next few months. That should mean a minimum of 3,000-4,000 new subscribers to the show. For each subscriber I make about $0.50 to $1.00 per month from affiliate commissions. If I can build my list up to around 10,000 then I should be making between $5,000-$10,000 per month. That would give me a lot of room to experiment with different money making methods.