This post comes from Jeremy Schoemaker of ShoeMoney.com.  If you’re not familiar with Jeremy, he’s a dot-com mogul from Lincoln, Nebraska.  He’s got his hands in all sorts of ventures and runs a pretty big outfit.  This article comes from his newsletter and was republished with his permission (great link bait Jeremy), which you can subscribe to here:  http://www.shoemoney.com/2008/08/04/shoemoney-newsletter/

Recently we filed a law suit in the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska against David Sullivan individually and d/b/a Big Blue Dots. You can see the full suit here.

The short story is Mr. Sullivan was using my face and copyrighted photograph to promote his fake news site.  You can see his site here.

We allege, in our lawsuit, that Mr. Sullivan’s web site contains a fake news story and fake comments from fake people in an attempt to dupe unsuspecting consumers into signing up for a monthly subscription service.   In the suit we are seeking recovery of damages, profits from the infringing use, our attorney fees and some other miscellaneous stuff.

We have had to defend our trademark and copyrights many times this year against people who have used our images and trademarks on Google AdWords, Twitter, eBay, Facebook and other means.

In some of our more public lawsuits there were a lot of very disparaging comments made about em and my company.  For example comments that we are now the RIAA of the affiliate marketing world.  That we are trying to get rich off of suing others and many other comments that kept me up at night.

The fact some people think we were making money from lawsuits is pretty crazy. I guess most people have no clue how expensive litigation is.  In 2009 even after all the successful settlements we were still very close to $100k in the red for legal.

Defending your brand is not cheap.

Let me take you through the process to help you understand how it works and how it comes to this point.

Some people might ask why all the hassle if it is not profitable.  Well if you do not defend your trademarks/copyrights you can lose them.  You have to take action.

The problem is that most of these people make it very difficult to contact them.  They use anonymous registration services and other means to protect their identity.

You can try to send your cease and desist letter to each and every contact you can come across.  But, I have never had anyone ever return my email complying with what I asked for.

So, then you have to pay your lawyer to subpoenas to the web hosting company, domain registrar, and/or affiliate company to get them to release the information.  Not all of them cooperate, and some go out of their way to be very uncooperative.  This costs time and money.

Sometimes just to break through all the barriers these guys setup to protect their identity can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

At that point you are not just sending a cease and desist letter for them to stop using your banner, you also have to try to recoup your legal fees + damages.

The person who is using your stuff probably thinks you’re bluffing and ignores your settlement demands.

At that point you have little choice but to either take the loss, or file suit.  Jurisdiction is argued, motions are filed, more motions are filed and soon you probably have racked up $25 to $50k in legal expenses.

I never understand why these people let it get this far.  If they just would have complied with your original C&D it would have been much cheaper for them.

I know what some of you are thinking: why is my brand so important to me?  Well for those who aren’t familiar I will tell you.

I have been drawing the ShoeMoney logo since I was 12 years old.  It’s something I am very proud of.  I have come a long way with a lot of hard work.  A long the way we have been able to create many products and services to help people make a lot of money on the internet.  We have built up trust with a lot of companies and people.  People who we have done business with in one way or another for the last 7 years.

The ShoeMoney Blog was my first entry into helping people make money online.  I never really intended it to be that though.  The ShoeMoney blog was just a place where I could throw up pictures, rants, and occasionally walk throughs on how to make money on the internet from my own experiences.  Somewhere along the line it gained some traction and became an authority in the space of making money on the internet.

I have spoken at over 50 industry leading events world wide in the last 7 years almost all of them in regards to making money on the internet.

I put on free local meetings (Nebraska People Making Money Online Group) for individuals and businesses to assist people in making money on the internet.

I host my own conference called the Elite Retreat.  We charge $5,000 per person but limit the capacity to only 30 people.  The events sell out usually the first week.  We have always offered a no questions ask money back guarantee.  In 5 years nobody has ever taken us up on that.

I started a advertising network called AuctionAds in March of 2007.  When we launched AuctionAds there were many companies doing the exact same thing that we were (display advertising network built around the eBay API and affiliate network) including eBay who at the time we launched had millions of dollars and many years invested in their product. We worked 20 hour days during AuctionAds.  David did all the technical stuff and me doing all the marketing.  We did what other companies were not willing to do and were rewarded handsomely for it.  By July of 2007 (only 4 months after launch) we had 25,000 active publishers doing millions in revenue.  AuctionAds was a great new alternative for people to make money but it quickly grew too big for a company of 2 people to handle.  So we sold it.  After only operating it for 4 months.  It was the hardest but most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life.

In late 2008 we launched ShoeMoney Tools.  A very advanced suite of internet marketing tools to help people make money online.  The site has been very successful for us.  We currently have over 2,000 paying members.  On the bottom of every page on the site is a cancel link. To cancel your account you just click a button, not many people take us up on that either.  Often times we refund people if there is any question or misunderstanding.

In May 2009 I released the ShoeMoneyX free 12 week training course.  It was a very low level “introduction” to the world of making money on the internet.  We have had hundreds of thousands of people download the course and the feedback has been amazing.

This January we are going to launch the ShoeMoney System. Highly influenced by the ShoeMoneyX feedback, the ShoeMoney System will be a complete step by step video walk through on how to make money on the internet.  No fancy theories, no bullshit.  I take regular people of the street many who never even used Facebook or twitter at all and step by step teach them how to make money. Unlike many systems out there this one will be amazingly low priced but have a huge library of content.  But if for whatever reason doesn’t think it’s worth the cost there will be a 30 day money back guarantee.

So, why am I telling you this?  Because I want you to understand all the blood sweat and tears I have put in for the last 7 years to build an incredibly strong and trusted brand in the field of making money on the internet.  I also back up every product I have ever sold with a zero hassle money back guarantee.

I am also a very public person.  If someone needs to get a hold of me I have made it extremely easy for them to do so.  In addition to the contact form on my blog – my personal cellphone number, email, and business address are publicly listed on every domain we own.  Sure I get a lot of solicitations and crap but it’s more important to me that people get ahold of me if they need to.  As I said before I speak at many conferences all over the world and have no plans to stop any time soon.  I am not hiding from anyone.

My mom says since I was born I always tried to be the hero to everyone.  I still have the problem.  I don’t care who you are or what you do or even what you have said about me previously on the internet. If I think I can help you and I have the time I will.  Ask anyone who has ever met me in person.

I wrote last week about where there is trust there is always someone willing to buy it.  Our brand has become so trusted and authoritative in the space of making money online that we have occasionally selectively licensed out the use of our copyrighted photos to companies.

But in my opinion people like this David Sullivan guy are just outright stealing trust… Using my face to promote… well just look at his site.  It’s my nightmare.

In the Sullivan case we fully expect to be awarded a 6 figure judgement + legal fees.  We have Google, the FTC, and most importantly the law on our side.

Here’s my blogging revenue report for November 2009.

Amazon – $2625.63

Google AdSense – $1263.03

Other Revenue Sources – $3087.63

________________________________

Grand Total for November 2009 – $6976.29

Content = Traffic = Money.

That’s the basic formula for me.  Produce good content.  I mean good, sticky content.

My existing reader base has done a great job of helping me promote my content simply because it’s been good. They’ve linked to posts in forums, twitter and facebook, which has helped

A couple of the “Other Revenue Sources” that were big hits here lately were Chitika, CPM-based banner ads, and a couple of affiliates that I’ve been targeting links to.  I think the CPM stuff is coming from ad buys leading up to the holiday shopping season.  It looks like there’s a little more confidence coming back in consumer spending.  Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing the final results from December.

Man, I’ve been waiting on this one a long time.

There are certain goals that you set in your mind, especially with something that is a gradually growing revenue source like AdSense.  That first $5 day, $10 day, $20 day, and so on.  It’s so very exciting at each and every milestone.  Even the $10 in a day is an awesome one to hit.  I’ve been flirting with numbers over $60 or so on good days for about a year.   There have been several days that I thought would go over the $100 mark, but they just didn’t make it.

Well, yesterday, November 20, 2009, my AdSense total crested the $100-in-a-day mark for the first time.  This isn’t so much for anyone reading this post other than me.  I just wanted to record the moment since it just rolled over so that I could see the final daily total.

I’m floating around a $40/day average right now.  Now that I have this goal behind me, I want to see that daily average climb to $50 and I want to see a single day hit $150. I never stop setting goals, and I love to see them accomplished.

I’ve still got some big ones floating around out there that I need to hit for the first time.  The 2 biggest are $10k earnings in a single month and 1 million page views in a single month.  They don’t have to both happen in the same month (that would be cool though), but I’m aiming hard to make those happen.

For now though, it’s a good day.

Read Write Web just posted this interesting (and frightening) story.  Here’s the gist of what went down:

A vulgar comment was made by a reader of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s website on Friday on an article about the strangest things you’ve ever eaten. The headline was practically asking for a juvenile response and, thanks to the anonymity of the internet, that’s exactly what happened. In the comments section of the article, one user posted a single word response referring to a part of a woman’s anatomy.

Get the full scoop about how the school employee was uncovered based on his IP address and a representative of STL Today informed the school – see Read Write Web’s post.

Revealing the commenter’s identity to a third party, including the school, is a express violation of the site’s privacy policy.

Read it here: http://www.stltoday.com/help/privacy-policy

Privacy policies are, for many industries, voluntary.  STL Today cooked its own, voluntary privacy policy and agreed not to disclose personal info to third parties:

We will not share individual user information with third parties unless the user has specifically approved the release of that information. In some cases, however, we may provide information to legal officials as described in “Compliance with Legal Process” below.

(emphasis added)

If you read the “Compliance with Legal Process” section, you’ll see that there has to be a reason to release information other than just tattling on someone leaving a naughty comment.

The FTC can set huge fines for violations of privacy policies – even if they are voluntarily implemented.  Additionally, the commenter may have contractual claims against STL Today for the damages caused (*a lost job) by its employee’s circumvention of the privacy policy.

I’ll bet we’ve not heard the end of this one.

Still yet, this is a scary reminder that just because a site has a privacy policy or terms of service in place where it promises not to reveal your information to third parties doesn’t always mean the site or its representatives will abide by it’s own rules.  Even though you may be in the right at the end of the day, that doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences to suffer in the interim.

I noticed the Twitter link on the Amazon Associates Site Stripe yesterday; however, it took me to an error page.  Now, it’s live.

If you click on the Twitter link in the site stripe, Amazon will re-direct you to twitter.com with a pre-populated message about the page you’re on and include a shorted URL with your affiliate code built-in.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a way to configure which tracking ID will be used for building the affiliate link.  As a result, if you use multiple tracking IDs like I do, you’ll be stuck with your default, which may mess up your efforts to keep your commission tracking in line.

I looks like we’ll still be building links manually for now.  Hopefully, Amazon will upgrade the options page for the site stripe (as of now, it’s only got an on/off switch) or throw in some Twitter customization in the Associates control panel soon.

I’m just glad Amazon finally made nice and allowed affiliate promotions on Twitter.

More details on the Amazon Associate Blog and in their Associates Social Media FAQ.

Here’s my blogging revenue report for October 2009.

Amazon – $1646.77

Google AdSense – $1207.18

Other Revenue Sources – $2789.86

________________________________

Grand Total for October 2009 – $5643.81

I love it when a plan comes together.

Not really doing much different this month. Focusing on content creation and more of it.  Newsletters proved to be a bigger help.  I’m telling you, email newsletters to focused audience should not be underestimated.

Next month?  I’m planning the work and working the plan.  Quality content, targeted newsletters and banking on holiday spending to increase.

I’ve got one affiliate partner that is performing exceptionally well on my primary site, so I may set them apart next month and call it Key Affiliate # 1, or something like that.

Here’s my blogging revenue report for September 2009.

Amazon (all countries) – $1358.93

Google AdSense – $1016.34

Other Revenue Sources – $2400.34

________________________________

Grand Total for September 2009 – $4775.61

Big moves in email marketing this month, cresting over $500 from direct actions taken from newsletters – either adspace sold in newsletters or affiliate links placed in those newsletters.  Residual earning from email newsletters are up as well.  I’ve said it before, every time I send out a newsletter, ordinary traffic earnings get a spike.

I’ve been working on my focus points – building quality content, leveraging email distribution lists, and building other niches.  I think I’m seeing payoffs and these will hopefully continue to grow throughout 4th quarter.

God has a viral marketing plan.  His current PR all-star is Tim Tebow, quarterback for the Florida Gators.

Regardless if you like the Gators, or even football, bear with me a moment and let me show you one simple way God gets people to take action on His “product” through Tim Tebow.

Every Saturday night in the Fall, a young quarterback dons his blue and orange uniform and goes out onto a field to play a game in front of millions of eyes watching his every move.  There’s no question, this young man is a great athlete, a great competitor.  However, that’s not what sets him apart from the rest.

There have been so many great athletes in so many sports.  Tim Tebow is not the greatest athlete of them all.  He’s not the best quarterback to have played the game.  He’s even been criticized by many pundits that he can’t cut it as a professional football quarterback.  While he received a Heisman trophy in his sophomore year (the only sophomore to have received the trophy – ever), he missed out last year when another player was voted the Most Outstanding Player, thus receiving the Heisman.

But – there’s something else about this guy.  Something that makes him stand out from the crowd.  Something that makes people watch him a little closer – on the field, on the sidelines, and in his daily life.  People pay attention to what Tim Tebow says and does wherever he’s at.

Why?

Because of his religious beliefs? No.

Because of his faith?  No.

Because of his actions? Bingo.

Tim Tebow walks the walk that he talks.

Countless sports pundits have written articles about Tim Tebow and his faith, religious beliefs, etc.; however, I want to turn your attention to Tim Tebow’s viral marketing for God and how every business can learn something from God and Tebow.

I mentioned above that Tebow puts a uniform and pads on to play football on Saturday nights.  He does something else too.  Something rather small that has a huge impact on God’s viral marketing plan.

Every time he puts on that uniform, he puts black stripes under his eyes.  Lots of football players do this.  It’s called eye black.  It’s supposed to reduce glare from sunlight or stadium lights to help players see better.  Tebow adds a little something on top of that eye black – an abbreviation of a Bible verse in small, white letters.  This is where God’s viral marketing takes off.

At some point in every game that I’ve seen this guy play, the TV cameras get a shot of Tebow without his helmet and you can see this chapter and verse abbreviation.  If you’ve watched one of his games, I’ll bet you’re like me and wonder, sometimes aloud, what that verse says.

This happened to me tonight, when Florida beat LSU.  I hadn’t seen a shot of Tebow up close until late in the fourth quarter when the CBS camera caught him on the sidelines without his helmet.  I saw “1 Thess 5 (something)”.  I couldn’t make out the last couple of digits and immediately I asked my wife “What’s that verse?”  She was trying to read it too, even before I said anything.  When she told me the verse was “1 Thessalonians 5:18″, my response was, “I wonder what that says.”

Then, I did what millions of other people across the world did at that very moment.  I searched for it on Google.

Result # 1 came from BibleGateway.com, which serves up one page for every single verse in the Bible.  I then found out that the text of 1 Thessalonians 5:18 reads:

give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

There’s a whole other post built around Tebow’s circumstances this week (coming back from a hard hit and concussion in his last game) and the relevance of this verse., not to mention the genius SEO and marketing of BibleGateway.com, which also allows you to see dozens of translations for each different verse.  As a Christian, I’m enamored by the effect of this guy on the rest of the world.  However, as a marketer, I’m amazed at how something so simple and seemingly unnoticeable takes a single, targeted message to literally millions of people.

A little less than an hour after I saw Tebow on the sidelines, I was sitting here at my computer reading RSS feeds in Google Reader.  One of the feeds I subscribe to is Google Trends.

If you don’t know, here’s what Google Trends does:

With Google Trends, you can compare the world’s interest in your favorite topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they’ve been searched on Google over time. Google Trends also shows how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories, and in which geographic regions people have searched for them most.  (About Google Trends)

You can follow the Hot Trends feed, which provides hourly updates of the hottest topics being searched on Google.  If you are an active online marketer or in any way involved in the media industry, then you should already be following this feed.  If not, you should subscribe now.  You don’t have to follow each update as it happens.  I generally scan the feed once or twice day to see if any of my niches have something I need to jump on.

Back to Tebow…

Minutes after CBS showed the close up of Tebow, the phrase “1 thessalonians 5 18″ went Volcanic on Google.  Google Trends rates search terms in order of hotness with “Volcanic” being the hottest a search term can get.  It was the number one search term on that hourly update in my RSS feed.

I wasn’t surprised though.  Every Saturday that Tebow plays football, his verse of the week becomes the number one search phrase on Google for a period of time.

You think any Sunday morning pastor has that kind of reach from the pulpit?  No way.  God reaches an audience through a football player every Saturday night that pastors simply don’t have the opportunity to bring their message in front of.

And that, my friends, is the key to God’s viral marketing plan.

Sunday morning pastors have a limited reach.  For the most part, their audience already has what God is trying to sell – eternal life through Christ Jesus, right?  Pastors, preachers, ministers, etc. are often really “preaching to choir” on Sunday mornings.

In order for God’s marketing plan to thrive, He has to take His message out to a larger audience – say, millions of people that haven’t tried his product on Saturday night in between beer and birth control commercials.  Talk about a targeted audience, eh?

These are the customers that God is really after.  These are the people that could really use His product.  But, how can He get His message out to all those people?

How about some TV commercials?  Seriously?  How many hokey commercials have you seen for a free Bible?  What about those Scientology characters out there?  They advertise on TV.  They’ve got some pretty cool commercials; however, they’re old and stale now, and they kind of freak me out whenever I see the Scientology pitch at the end.

TV commercials might get you some traffic, but that’s a lot of effort and you have to really come up with something cool to get the skeptics to take action.  God wants to reach the skeptics too.

God has figured out that His message, when made direct and to the point, doesn’t always sit well with people.  Some people need a slight nudge instead, a viral message.  A message that is subtle, yet stirs up enough curiosity to force people to take action.  And the action is done in a way that people think that it’s on their terms, not God’s.

God has a complete message contained in the 66 books of the Bible.  Getting that message across in a single instance isn’t practical.  So, just using a little bit of the overall message to give some of the effect is a good start.

The big issue, however, is delivery.  I think we all know that a TV commercial during the Saturday night football game probably won’t get the kind of response that God’s looking for.  Sure, a few folks will tune in and search the message on Google, but not the kind of audience that He’s really after.

Instead, God needs a messenger.  Just any messenger won’t do because God really needs to sell the message.  He doesn’t need to be pushy about it, but it needs to be convincing and real.  God needs a messenger that walks the walk of his message.

That’s precisely where Tebow fits into God’s viral marketing plan.  The overall air time of the message is so very small compared to the probably dozen or so Miller High Life commercials that were on during the Florida v. LSU game tonight; however, everyone watching the ball game knows that there is something different about the messenger delivering God’s message from 1 Thessalonians 5:18 when compared to the two delivery truck guys arguing about which type of Miller beer is better.  (By the way, Miller High Life was not even a blip on the Google Trends radar tonight.)

The guys in the beer commercials are paid actors, while the guy on the football field is the real deal.

People all across the world watch every time Tebow steps onto the field and squint to see which verse he is wearing tonight.  When they see it, they go to their computers, open Google and search to see what it says.

It’s a Spark.

That’s exactly what God is looking for – just enough to get us to thinking about Him, about this Tebow guy and what makes him different and so happy all the time.  How can this guy always see the silver lining?  What really drives this guy?

Tebow’s not perfect.  He’s human.  Just like you and me.  He makes mistakes, fails and sins.

However, it’s not Tebow’s flaws that make him stand out from the crowd.  It’s his willingness to be genuine; to become God’s viral marketing plan; to forsake all the secular things that could be his as the star quarterback at a school like Florida.

I remember when Tebow was selected as part of the Playboy all-star team.  I forget the exact name of the award.  What I do remember though is that when the Playboy people called Urban Meyer to notify him of the award, Urban immediately responded that Tebow would pass on coming out for the Playboy weekend to party and be in the photo shoot.

Meyer and Tebow hadn’t discussed this beforehand; however, Meyer saw in Tebow what the rest of us see and knew without asking that such an event would not be of interest to Tebow.  Meyer already knew what kind of messenger that Tim Tebow was.

It’s not one game, one speech or any one thing that makes Tebow such a good fit in God’s marketing plan.  It’s a lifetime of action and choices that follow from belief in God’s product.  If Tebow didn’t appear genuine to everyone watching, the marketing plan would not be effective.

Think about it.  How many athletes point to the sky, kiss a cross or thank God when they score or win a game?  How many of those do you believe?  How many live their daily lives consistent with a professed faith that make us wonder what’s so different about them?  Mediocrity does not sell.

Tying It All Together.

By now, I hope you get the substance of God’s viral marketing plan through Tim Tebow.  I also hope that I have made clear the form through which God uses Tebow to apply this plan (regardless of your personal beliefs).

Whatever your message is in your own business, there’s a way to drill down to the core and produce something worth exploring further by your potential customers.

Delivery is crucial.  Your message has to sell, but your delivery of that message should be tolerable and genuine to your intended customers.

Take your message to your customers.   These are the people that really need your product.  Where are they now?  Go there with your message.

Choose the right messenger.  Are you using the Miller High Life truck drivers or do you have a Tebow on your team to deliver your message?  More people will believe your Tebow than your paid truck driver actors.  Tap your existing, satisfied customers to help deliver your message.

Here’s my blogging revenue report for August 2009.

Amazon (all countries) – $1698.38

Google AdSense – $971.76

Other Revenue Sources – $1362.47

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Grand Total for August 2009 – $4181.83

A mild increase from July.  I can live with this; however, I expect more.

Goals for the rest of the year:

• Continue to build and leverage email lists through email marketing.  (There’s gold in there.)
• Diversify revenue streams by building out other niches.  Several opportunities are presenting themselves now.
• As always, build quality content.

Still searching for that big $10k month and 1 million page view.  It’s out there.

If you thought AdSense and AdWords was a big deal up until now, hang on.  Google is opening up an entirely new can of worms by allowing third party networks to compete with AdWords advertisers.  Here’s the email Google just sent me:

Hi,

We’re writing to let you know about an upcoming update in your AdSense account designed to help you generate the maximum revenue from your ad units. You’ll soon be able to allow multiple ad networks to show on your pages, which means that advertisers from external Google-certified networks will be able to compete with AdWords advertisers for your ad space.

If you’re unfamiliar with what ad networks are, they’re companies that partner with advertisers and publishers to buy and sell ads on sites they don’t own themselves, similar to AdSense. Ads from these networks will compete with Google ads to show on publisher sites, and the ad generating the highest revenue for publishers will be displayed.

To ensure the quality of the ads appearing on your sites, we’re certifying all participating ad networks for adherence to our standards for user privacy, ad quality, and speed. You’ll also have control over which networks can show ads on your pages — you can choose to opt out of receiving ads from specific networks, or all networks completely. This means you can continue to show ads from only AdWords advertisers if you’d like.

Finally, some ad networks use tools similar to Google’s interest-based advertising to show more relevant ads to users on the sites they visit. These ad networks won’t be permitted to collect data from your site for the purpose of subsequent interest-based advertising, but we’ll allow those who comply with user privacy guidelines to show ads using these tools. You’ll have the ability to opt out of showing ads based on user interests from these ad networks, and we’ve changed our requirements for third-party ad serving to reflect this. More information is available at http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=94230 .

These new capabilities will automatically be enabled for your account, and you’ll see a new section in your Ad Review Center where you can allow or block specific ad networks. Please note that we’ll gradually be adding new ad networks to AdSense accounts over the next few months, so you won’t see any immediate impact on your ads or your earnings.

To learn more about this launch and managing the ad networks appearing on your pages, visit the AdSense Help Center at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=13522 and watch our video demo at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HyJPOVLd3I .

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

More on the official AdSense blog.