An Interview With Marc Quarles, Owner Of DealDotCom
September 16, 2007 by
Adam
Filed under
Entrepreneurship
When I woke up today, I was greeted by bucket-loads of articles in my feedreader notifying me of two new services - and 2 new affiliate programs to promote.
The first of these was BlogRush. Created by John Reese (the famous internet marketing expert), the widget which you can see in my sidebar aims to increase your blog traffic by showing your articles on other relevant blogs in your niche. To help spread the word, the creators have put in place a 10-tier referral scheme, which allows you to get your articles seen to a wide audience. For a better explanation, checkout the video on their homepage.
I don’t want to do a full review of this now, instead I’m waiting to gather more data before I can analyse the effectiveness of the system.
Instead, I wanted to bring you an exciting interview with the brains behind Internet Marketing’s newest service - DealDotCom. So far to my knowledge, this is the first interview with Marc Quarles, the owner, about DealDotCom. The official launch is on Tuesday 18th, so enjoy you faithful Blogtrepreneur readers!
Hey, firstly welcome to Blogtrepreneur and thanks for doing this interview on such short notice!
Sure thing, Adnan… there’s nothing we like to do better on a beautiful Sunday morning than getting interviewed. It’s what we live for!
So, what is DealDotCom and how does it work for those of us unlucky enough not to be caught up in the hype?
Starting Tuesday, September 18th, we’ll offer one single internet marketing, blogging, or online business related product for sale. The product will be available at a significant discount, and there will be a limited quantity available.
That product will be available for 24 hours only, or until it sells out. We start selling a new product the next day at midnight US Central time.
Behind the action there’s a two-tier affiliate program… so if anyone you refer to DealDotCom ever buys anything, you get paid (35% of DDC’s profits). Also, if anyone they refer ever buys anything, you get paid (15% of DDC’s profits).
How did you come up with the idea? (I never knew buying internet marketing products could be so fun!)
I came up with the idea last January when I observed my wife going to the big “deal of the day” websites on the internet every single morning, like clockwork. When I asked her why she kept going there every day, she said “It’s addictive… I just have to know what they’re selling each day.”
Understand, my wife is married to a marketer, and she’s learned tons of marketing through osmosis, so anything that can grab and hold her attention was something I knew I needed to research.
After some in-depth research, and a few of my own personal twists, the DealDotCom idea was born.
As internet marketers yourselves, can you give us any tips into a successful product launch?
Be unique. The Internet marketing community sees a new mega launch pretty much every week, so you have to do something that grabs their attention and makes them say “Hey… here’s something different. I’m going to check that out.”
What’s your favourite internet marketing product of all time?
I can’t narrow it down to just one product. I learned a LOT from John Reese’s traffic secrets, so that would be up there near the top. But I’d have to say my favorite would be PortalFeeder. There’s just so much there - tons of training, all the software you’d ever need, and a fantastic community of members who are always willing to help each other.
As the blogosphere moves more and more into newer types of media (like video and podcasting), where do you think traditional, text eBooks will go in the future?
Video and podcasting definitely have their place in both the marketing process and as the products themselves. But the radio didn’t destroy printed books, and neither did television… Text eBooks will be around for a long, long time.
Finally, why should people reading this article signup under my DealDotCom affiliate link?!
Because once they do, they’ll have access to some great business-building products at great prices, they’ll have some fun (we’re all about fun at DealDotCom), and they stand to make some decent money by helping us spread the word.
Great summary. Thanks for the interview, and good luck with the official launch of the site on Tuesday 18th September!
nice interview. I love interviews. You should do more interviews. :p
No, seriously, I really think that interviews are from where I learn the most.
Thanks for posting this kind of articles
No problem mate - and you should get an award for using the word “interviews” that many times in a paragraph
great interview! It looks like an exciting project I am looking forward to the official launch!
Interesting. I’m not much of a shopper/gadget freak but I have watched woot.com a long time and wondered why someone hadn’t picked up on that concept for intangible goods. I especially see this getting hot with its intended IM market because I’ve often read up on one offering or another and then put it aside to “think about it”. If it’s a one-time, time limited deal the ‘call to action” may indeed be much stronger.
I laughed when I saw the mention of blogRush. I have found one concrete benefit for being a day ahead of the rest of you “yesterdayer’s” on the far side of the dateline … I joined and put BlogRush up more than 24 hours ago. Like you, I do not yet know … I’m put off buy the huge referral hierarchy … not an MLM “downline” kind of guy, and in 24 hours I have seen very little coming through the feed … but i was looking for a plug-in/widget like that so I’ll run it for a while and see.
Thanks Thomas!
@ Dave: yeah - I’m still not sure whether DealDotCom have an affiliation of any sort with Woot!, seeing as how their designs are pretty similar. Maybe they’re owned by the same people?
I reckon that I might be tempted to buy some products - when things become scarce, then the whole “I want it” syndrome kicks in!
Lol - yeah I looked at my sites, and didn’t see any noticeable rise in traffic. I’ll give it another few days before I comment, but if after that there’s no results, I’ll probably remove the widget. It’s a hard thing getting people to click on things these days…
Thanks for making my mind up for me on whether or not to put up the blogrush widget. I’ll just wait and see how it goes with you guys. LOL.
However, I like the concept of dealdotcom. I’ll surely be keeping an eye on it since I’m an avid Woot fan!
Keep up the great one adnan..excellent interview..can’t wait for more of these to come.
Just to clear up any confusion - we are in no way related to, linked with, or in cahoots with Woot.com
Respectfully,
Marc
WEll, it was a brilliant idea, it spread very fast across the web.
It is amazing just how quickly these new ideas have spread, demonstrating the incredible, viral power of blogging and rss. Nice interview. I have the BlogRush widget installed on my blog, but not yet sure about DealDotCom. I’ll be closely monitoring both over the next two weeks.
No problems Chris and thanks for the clearing up Marc. It’s just that DDC and Woot seem so similar in design, especially in the header area.
@ WarriorBlog - yep it was a fab idea, and I’m sure it has resulted in a lot of income for them over the past week and a bit.
Finally thanks for commenting Daniel - yeah blogs and the blogosphere in general can be such great forms of marketing. Thanks and keep us posted on the results!
Adnan - you’re right about our site looking too much like Woot’s - we’ve applied a new design so as to not confuse anyone, or irritate Woot.
Marc
Thanks for clearing that up Marc. The new design looks awesome and I hope the great site launch has made your pockets a lot deeper