If you’re a regular reader of my blog, then you probably know that I both give away and also sell digital delivery software – SmartDD.
What it does is both deliver digital products and also protects them from unauthorised downloads. It uses a number of clever ways to do this, and we’re not done with improvements yet. Version 2 will be out soon.
SmartDD is relatively cheap for the protection it gives product owners, and yet, as in the case below, many products are still left completely unprotected.
Up to now, whenever I’ve found the download page of unprotected product, I’ve written to the product owner to let them know about the problem. Around 10-15% of them write back to thank me, and I always offer a free copy of SmartDD in those cases if they’ll promote for me.
Some do, some don’t. That’s okay.
Except… I’ve got bored of doing it…
So I’m going to let you know the simplest way of getting hold of thousands of dollars worth of products for free. Actually, if you’ve watched the video on the SmartDD.com home page, or read the text underneath it, you already know how to do it.
But here’s a reminder anyway.
Just go to del.icio.us and type in the product name you’re interested in getting a free copy of, the shorter or more unusual the name, the better, e.g. smartdd.
If the product is unprotected and is either popular or has been around a while, SOMEONE at SOME TIME will have bookmarked the download page. Hilarious isn’t it?
Here’s an example, but I’ve left out the products and download details as it would be a case of “shame on me”.
Last night, I was looking at some software I was interested in, having bought info products from this particular person already. The info products weren’t that good, and I suspected the software wouldn’t be so good either, but it looked intriguing, and I was going to buy on pure curiousity factors alone.
Instead I went to del.icio.us and did a quick search on the very unusual product name.
There was the download page exposed for all the world to see, bookmarked along with a dozen other download pages by someone who I believe is a very well known marketer, which makes it pretty ironic. His name wasn’t there, but his userid was quite recognisable.
So I took a look at the download page, watched the videos of the product in action and decided it wasn’t worth the hundred dollars the guy was asking for it. Having seen it being used, I know I wouldn’t have used it myself. That’s probably the reason there wasn’t much info on the sales page.
As I was in a curious mood, I decided to search for the other products sold by this person. There they all were, the download pages bookmarked under various people’s userids on del.icio.us, and these all amount to thousands of dollars worth of software and info products that I know the guy is selling daily.
It’s a miracle that anyone actually buys anything from him at all considering it can be downloaded for free.
So why am I telling you this?
Remember I said I used to write to people to let them know they had open download pages? And that I’m now fed up of doing it?
Well, why don’t you do it instead? It’s easy, and you can make money from it too. 😉
Step 1 – Get your affiliate link from the SmartDD.com web site. Just sign up as a free member if you’ve not already and you’ll get your aff link inside the members area.
Step 2 – Find an unprotected download page using the del.icio.us method.
Step 3 – Write to the product owner and let them know their page is open for all the world to see. Tell them they can protect their product using SmartDD, and give them your affiliate link.
If they buy, you get the commission.
In step 3, you may think it’s worth being a little cheeky and saying “thank you for the free product” before letting them know about SmartDD, but I wouldn’t do that if I were you. 😉
If you’re interested in other methods of getting hold of unprotected or poorly protected products, there’s a very nice little ebook about it here:-
http://www.frankhaywood.com/go/dlh/
Don’t you think it’s lunacy that some people will go to all the trouble of creating an info product, but then can’t spend the extra little bit of time protecting their investment?
Get out there and spread the word!
You are so “right on”, Frank. I’ve seen people leave their links wide open, unprotected, but, “on del.icio.us” – WOW!! I am one of the type you noted: I will be reporting as I see open links – even at del.icio.us! Thanks for the great info. Have a BLESSED Year 2008 = “Freedom!!”
I have found that if someone wants it bad enough it is almost impossible to protect. del.icio.us is one of a 100 tricks but just google alone leaves thousand upon thousands of products wide open just from searching for the download page.
Good way of thinking outside the box sell to the sellers!!!! right on!
That’s an awesome idea. I’m going to incorporate that into a time slot for next week. Or maybe I should do it right away. Thanks again.
1 Good Idea…hiihihihii…you can get a lot of traffic and why not,.. sales….but We can too.
Regards,
Chris
http://www.productselected.com
Hi Frank – Great post –
Just makes you think if these people are serious about their business.
It is possible many just dont even know its happenning and its or duty to tell them and hopefully earn some commissions as well.
Many thanks
Hamant
Very clever way to make aff cash well done frank!
sally 🙂