[Progress Thread] - Helping (FX/stocks/etc) Traders Become Profitable

[ddinnov]

Hi all - here is my progress thread

I won't repost a lot of background stuff here as is it can be found in my introduction thread. In short I've been doing IM for about 7 years, trading for 4 and decided to fuse the 2 as my fast track plan.

The need:

Currently there is a massive (95% or thereabouts) failure rate for average Joe retail traders. In my observation this is because a large chunk of them are after get-rich-easy (holy grail systems, robots, signals, social 'copy a trader' sites) shortcuts. Then you have your more serious and determined traders who put in time and effort only to be rewarded with consistent losses, stress and being slapped hard by the markets. I believe from my own experience, participation in trading forums and market research that in the majority of cases the serious and determined trader fails due to psychological reasons. Many are not even prepared to accept that they might need to work on themselves and instead keep looking for better systems and market analysis methods as the remedy to their problems.

Like me (before I went very hardcore into trading psychology) they allow strong emotional reactions and automatic behaviour patterns to make bad trading decisions rather than operating from a logical, pre-planned, objective and indifferent mind-set. They allow a natural need to be right (programmed at school and the work place where being wrong/infallible is frowned upon) to to prevent them from taking small losses and moving on to the next trade. Bad decisions cause bad trades which cause emotional pain (losing money + being wrong) which cause knee-jerk behaviour, more bad decisions which snowball into blown accounts. If you can't follow rules and trade efficiently then it doesn't matter how good your system and analysis are. If your ego and emotions are driving the bus... You're gonna have a bad time.

I see very little training on discipline and psychology, what I do see available is very high ticket ($1k+). I myself invested in a high ticket course (Van Tharp Peak Performance Home Study) which changed how I approach the markets and my life in general. I also got into some basic spirituality, self awareness, mindfulness,meditation (Eckhart Tolle/Osho/David Hawkins/Buddhism/Zen/meditation/Martial Arts etc.) which had a very positive affect on my trading and my life in general. I don't see any really good and helpful trading psychology products that are easy to consume and affordable. I believe serious and determined traders need this and deserve a decent chance at getting some return on their time/effort/money invested.

The product:

About this time last year I developed an ebook on trading discipline/psychology. I created a freebie, built a funnel and list through solo ads I bought from people on the Warrior forum. I got a lot of sign ups, a few sales and a couple of refunds. The numbers didn't work out so I have spent most of this year researching, talking to few people on my list and working on my own trading.

I've just outsourced the writing of the ebook by a professional. I'm combining what he's returned with bits of my original product (refund rate was 20% and some feedback was good). I'll make it into videos (powerpoint+camtasia) as well if it takes off. I'm almost finished with the first module which I am looking for case studies to test.

Challenges:

1. This niche is massively saturated which means lots of competition, expensive PPC/media buys and very tough SEO
2. Getting through to my actual target audience will be hard (previous solo ads were with people who sold GRQ robots/signals etc so traffic was wrong segment)

That said I feel confident in the value I can deliver to the right customer - I believe this will overcome obstacles if it works out.

Next steps:

This weekend - finish module 1 (about 90% done), do appsumo validation test training, set up validation test.

If this flops I have a bunch of other ideas for this niche and some good domains ready to go. This appsumo validation test concept has jolted me out of analysis paralysis. I really would like this idea to take off as I'm very passionate about helping average Joe take money from Wall St.

Thanks for reading

 

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[adoredunchin]

I don't see any really good and helpful trading psychology products that are easy to consume and affordable.

www.tradimo.com
There are even free trading schools. And this is from a multimillion company who founded pokerstrategy.com. So perhaps you should correct this statement. But don't let this be the brickwall that holds you back. Keep on doing!

 

[ddinnov]

www.tradimo.com
There are even free trading schools. And this is from a multimillion company who founded pokerstrategy.com. So perhaps you should correct this statement. But don't let this be the brickwall that holds you back. Keep on doing!

That looks a bit general, I'm aware of free (and paid) general trading education like babypips etc. I was referring specifically to the sub-niche of trading discipline and psychology - like these products here:

http://www.vantharp.com/products.asp

http://www.thedisciplinedtrader.com/mkhome.php

I'll be doing a validation test this weekend. But yeah one of my main issues so far is people buying my product/joining my list and expecting to be shown a system. It's a very specific subset of the niche.

 

[Guest3722A]

http://markdouglas.com/audiocds.html People seem to love this guy too, along w/ VanTharp. Even in the saturation of the trading psychology market, both of these guys floated to top I think mainly because people read their stuff i.e. VanTharp was in Market Wizards and of course, the Trading in the Zone book.

If your subscribers are requesting systems to validate, why don't you give them a few?

 

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[ddinnov]

http://markdouglas.com/audiocds.html People seem to love this guy too, along w/ VanTharp. Even in the saturation of the trading psychology market, both of these guys floated to top I think mainly because people read their stuff i.e. VanTharp was in Market Wizards and of course, the Trading in the Zone book.

If your subscribers are requesting systems to validate, why don't you give them a few?

Yeah Mark Douglas is great, I've listened to Trading in the Zone on audio book about 12 times and counting now. Van Tharp I've read a lot of his stuff including the Peak performance home study course.

I'm steering well away from offering any system or edge because I don't want to be just another system/method/edge. That's where there is a lot of competition and noise. I will however promote some of the better ones on the back end to customers who buy my product.

Part of my offering includes how to find/develop/tweak your own unique edge.

 

[Guest3722A]

You know whats interesting, something I've learned as far as what worked with me and "my" trading psych, so to speak. I actually designed an automated system I use with Sierra Chart's spreadsheet trading that has an edge so reliable, that I actually have no problems sleeping while my computer trades! Is that nuts, and even unheard of?? AND it's r/r is pretty darn close to a 1:1, AND the target isn't scalping!!

For me at least, psych isn't a problem anymore because of the non-stop reliability of the system. I know a lot of people don't feel this way about automation, but, I do have the proof.

 

[ddinnov]

You know whats interesting, something I've learned as far as what worked with me and "my" trading psych, so to speak. I actually designed an automated system I use with Sierra Chart's spreadsheet trading that has an edge so reliable, that I actually have no problems sleeping while my computer trades! Is that nuts, and even unheard of?? AND it's r/r is pretty darn close to a 1:1, AND the target isn't scalping!!

For me at least, psych isn't a problem anymore because of the non-stop reliability of the system. I know a lot of people don't feel this way about automation, but, I do have the proof.

That is very cool

I have the domain robopip.com waiting in the wings to hit the automation market as well. I have similar domains for systems and signals - just in case the psyche one doesn't work out and to diversify and possibly flip.

Personally I enjoy analysing charts too much to go automation and I don't really use indicators except for a few MA's and ATR for volatility. I could do it all day long and sometimes do - just for fun. Except now I can do it and just watch instead of jump on B/C/D grade setups then sit and fret about 'being in wishing I was out'

 

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[Guest3722A]

That is very cool

I have the domain robopip.com waiting in the wings to hit the automation market as well. I have similar domains for systems and signals - just in case the psyche one doesn't work out and to diversify and possibly flip.

Personally I enjoy analysing charts too much to go automation and I don't really use indicators except for a few MA's and ATR for volatility. I could do it all day long and sometimes do - just for fun. Except now I can do it and just watch instead of jump on B/C/D grade setups then sit and fret about 'being in wishing I was out'

robopip?? and .com??? imo THAT IS A FANTASTIC DOMAIN NAME! Congratulations on that one.

Have you ever looked into auction-market theory (amt) and footprint? Verrrry interesting technical stuff going on there that actually in many instances, in my experience, gives early-warning clues to trend change. Cool stuff man! For a minute there I thought you were referring to auction theory when you mentioned B/C/D grade setups! lol and I was thinking to myself: b and D setups (in amt) are actually easy money lol

 

[ddinnov]

robopip?? and .com??? imo THAT IS A FANTASTIC DOMAIN NAME! Congratulations on that one.

Have you ever looked into auction-market theory (amt) and footprint? Verrrry interesting technical stuff going on there that actually in many instances, in my experience, gives early-warning clues to trend change. Cool stuff man! For a minute there I thought you were referring to auction theory when you mentioned B/C/D grade setups! lol and I was thinking to myself: b and D setups (in amt) are actually easy money lol

Thanks I haven't heard of that but I'll look into it.

-Progress update

I've finished the 'ghetto' version of the product, written and published up a ghetto sales page and created a not-so-ghetto Facebook ad campaign.

Spend - $13.47
Click throughs - 39
CTR - 0.141%
Sales - $0

Currently I'm sending cold first time visitors to a sales message so I'm not too sure what to expect from this. I would be more inclined to send them to a squeeze page first then have an OTO (one-time-offer) after they've opted in and an autoresponder follow up sequence for those who don't buy the OTO.

I'd also like to get some cheaper traffic so I'm looking into some media buying. I downloaded and read the appsumo (my new best friend) media buying guide so know how to move forward with that. The thing is that by investing in a media server and getting some creatives I'm probably straying away from 'quick and dirty validation test' into fully fledged campaign.

I suppose the question is how much time/money should go into a validation test? I kind of know already that there is a need to be filled here and there ain't no $27/47/67/97 ebook/video courses about it on clickbank Yes there are high ticket courses and books on amazon.

So I'm going to press on with getting my feet wet with media buying and getting some banners made as I need to get this system up and running for my business regardless.

For the opt-in ---> OTO --->autoresponder sequence (if they don't buy the OTO) I have one form previous efforts so I'll revisit that and tweak it for this campaign. At least then if I get no sales I'll get some subscribers.

Anyone got any good links for how to create banners? I'll download and do them in Gimp but any tips on best practice/guidelines/what works would be great. If not I'll search around and post up findings here.

 

[ddinnov]

haven't posted here for a while so it's probably time for an update. I have been massively busy and moved ahead a lot in the last few weeks.

After sending some initial traffic to the sales page it didn't convert at all, I didn't send many clicks so not enough to get any statistically significant data. I then revamped my squeeze page - -> OTO (one time offer) - Autoresponder ---> sales page funnel and hit a wall where facebook dissaproved all my ads - even the ones identical to the ones they approved the previous day. Only difference was the destination landing page being a squeeze page instead of the sales page...

So I soldiered on and read the Media Buying sumo ebook, made a very ghetto banner and bought a relatively cheap media buy on a related site through buysellads.com. Have seen a trickle of traffic and no sign ups, I changed my squeeze page to a fairly long avdertorial (instead of the typical headline/bullets/CTA/form). Nothing - nada - zip. I tried a FB ad but they didn't like the advertorial page either. I sent some 7Search clicks and got 0 conversions there.

It's all useful data and 'failing fast'. Plus I know about media buying now which will come in useful.

***Slight short term change of direction***

I got very inspired by the AMA thread on affiliate marketing and decided to have a go at some CPA marketing for 3 purposes.

1. To build some capital and get into a full time position and out of 9-5 ASAP
2. To set up some traffic systems, build on media buying, PPC, tracking and testing, PPV.
3. Develop some skills and experience in driving paid traffic, testing and optimising campaigns.

As a result of this I've now got my first profitable CPA campaign and have Prosper 202 tracking clicks, conversions, CPC, EPC at the keyword level. I'm just direct linking from PPC ad to CPA offer but next steps are (this weekend):

Build landing pages for campaigns
test/tweak/optimise
Throw up a lot of campaigns.
Start using competitive intel (whatrunswhere)

This skillset and and set of systems will serve me well when I get back to building my list and rolling out my front end products.

By focusing CPA on my niche (trading) I'm seeing a lot of landing pages and how they do/don't convert. I already see why my stuff isn't, mainly because I've been using an IM approach to the trading niche. In IM you can get away with just words on a page with little to no design, screaming red headlines and in-yer-face copy etc is the norm.

I don't see any of this on high converting trading/fx offers. Design needs to be slick and any hard sell must be toned down.

CPA is helping me in many ways and anyone wanting to get their hands dirty through failing fast and seeing what works and what doesn't should do it even if it's just for the learning by doing.

 

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[ddinnov]

I finally 'get' prosper 202 and all the tracking/subids/postback stuff and have it all down and working...

Now I'm going hard into landing pages, copy and testing and getting them up fast with mutiple versions.

Still gipping around with 7 search just while I get all my systems up and running but when I'm comfortable with the tracking/testing and landing page creation I'll bridge out into other traffic sources one at a time starting with bing then either media buys or Facebook.

I joined the paid Affplaybook forum which is hands down the best online marketing resource I have seen in 7 years and thousands upon thousands of info products. Nothing else even comes close...

By the end of this weekend I will have at least 3 offers with multiple landing pages testing. Maybe one of them will be my own but I need some design work done before sending lots of traffic. I also need to tidy up my product a bit.

Momentum and progress feels good.

 

[ddinnov]

Moving forward with AM, it's quite tough and very very fiddly/technical. Not seeing any real returns yet (initial profitable campaign has dried up) but I don't expect fast results from anything worth having.

I am getting quicker and better at setting up campaigns and landing pages, I'm learning about Bing traffic which has potential volumes I need but is expensive without good quality score so this will be a learning curve.

After I have this down I'll look into competitive intel, both PPC and media buying (whatrunswhere/Adbeat).

I'm already feeling the call to start driving traffic to my own funnel rather than affiliate offers, the idea of playing the pure affiliate game isn't that appealing - I want to build something substantial that makes a difference.

I still have a lot of campaigns to build and test so I can get really really good at this targeted traffic + conversion thing.

It's all good - a lot to learn and do but luckily I love it.

So Bing traffic, competitve intel and more campaigns/landing pages. Chomp chomp chomp...

 

[ddinnov]

Update.

Been quite busy driving PPC traffic to my squeeze page and getting some not very good conversion rates (9% is best so far) and not the best CPC. But it's a start and I have numbers to work on and the means to improve with testing.

Regarding affiliate/CPA offers I'm more inclined to drive traffic to my list and nurture by providing valuable content. Traders (especially unsuccessful ones which is almost all of them) are a very harsh, cynical and jaded bunch.

To win them over will require really helping as many as I can as best I can - which is tough because most of them simply don't want to hear what (I believe) they need to hear and are not prepared to look inside themselves and change who they are. Telling someone they're better off learning to meditate and develop self awareness than looking for more systems and analysis will only get through to very few of them.

On the flip side if you visit any popular trading forum and look in the "why do I suck/fail" threads they are all awash with advice on trading without emotion and having discipline... go figure.. Obviously there are the tough guys who come along and rubbish anything to do with trading psychology but there are people who will rubbish anything as that is how they choose to spend their time.

So I'm fully prepared for the fact that my stuff will only impact a small slice of this niche. I'm prepared to cop a lot of flack from jaded, angry margin callers who like to spend hours arguing with other "need-to-be-rights" on the Internet.

I'm toying with the idea of giving away the front end product to build a tribe and promote some top quality products and become an introducing broker for well established and proven to be ethical brokers.

What I don't have in my offering or marketing is the magic shiny object 'get rich easy' method. I'm looking at developing a basic price action course to cover this combined with the trading psychology - but I don't want to compete on the system/analysis aspect.

It's all good and I'm making progress. Tech wise I'm building my facebook page with a FB ad to increase likes (about 550 now). I'm also going to move my squeeze page into a tab of the FB page as that slashes CPC on FB ads.

I'm also looking at Facbook engagement methods to improve edgerank.

Still focused first and foremost on helping serious retail traders get over the discipline/stress hurdle which is the core offer.

 

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[Berters]

I like the sound of this, I'll be following
Spent a lot of time over the previous summer studying Forex - learnt quickly that everyone is after a holy grail, with a chart full of indicators, believing that they know what's going on from all of the pretty lines and numbers...

I demo traded for a bit on clean charts, support and resistance lines (treating them as supply and demand zones) and had some success.

The problem for me is time, I'm back at University now for my final year and with everything else I have going on, it's finding the time to learn and perfect a strategy. My ideal would be to look at long timeframe charts each night, for no more than an hour, and make some trades throughout the week, minimal effort. Solve that for me and I'm a customer

 

[adoredunchin]

I'm building my facebook page with a FB ad to increase likes (about 550 now)

why would you buy likes? I never got that. Like don't make you money. Better invest the money in the ads to your conversion page.

 

[Hicks]

Hi, I've been using your product and am finding it very useful. There is definitely a need for this but unfortunately people don't realize it until they have totally failed and have just decided to cut their losses and quit.

I think that you should really change parts of your book into an ebook and sell it on amazon kindle (cheaply....almost an impulse buy). Do a free giveaway via kdp. Then link back to to your website where you up-sell your other products. Remember, the people on amazon already want to buy things.

Obviously this may not work but, at the very least I think you should think about publishing on kindle

 

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[ddinnov]

why would you buy likes? I never got that. Like don't make you money. Better invest the money in the ads to your conversion page.

I like can be a lead if you can produce good enough content. They can also comment and share which raises edge rank and spreads to other people. Also social proof is important as I will be hosting my squeeze page on Facebook. Just to clarify these are likes from a Facebook 'get more likes' paid ad campaign not some Indian click farm but targeted likes from demographics in my niche i have chosen

 

[ddinnov]

I like the sound of this, I'll be following
Spent a lot of time over the previous summer studying Forex - learnt quickly that everyone is after a holy grail, with a chart full of indicators, believing that they know what's going on from all of the pretty lines and numbers...

I demo traded for a bit on clean charts, support and resistance lines (treating them as supply and demand zones) and had some success.

The problem for me is time, I'm back at University now for my final year and with everything else I have going on, it's finding the time to learn and perfect a strategy. My ideal would be to look at long timeframe charts each night, for no more than an hour, and make some trades throughout the week, minimal effort. Solve that for me and I'm a customer

If you're interested I'll send yo a PM to discuss a 4h/1d semi-discretionary strategy?

 

[ddinnov]

Hi, I've been using your product and am finding it very useful. There is definitely a need for this but unfortunately people don't realize it until they have totally failed and have just decided to cut their losses and quit.

I think that you should really change parts of your book into an ebook and sell it on amazon kindle (cheaply....almost an impulse buy). Do a free giveaway via kdp. Then link back to to your website where you up-sell your other products. Remember, the people on amazon already want to buy things.

Obviously this may not work but, at the very least I think you should think about publishing on kindle

Thank you very much for the kind words and suggestions

I'll definitely look into Amazon!

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

why would you buy likes? I never got that.

It gives the illusion of social proof... and social proof is very powerful to influence buying behavior.

 

[ddinnov]

It gives the illusion of social proof... and social proof is very powerful to influence buying behavior.

Thanks MJ - I like the facbook ad system for likes because they are targeted and they can choose whether to do it or not

 

[AllenCrawley]

Just to be clear. Buying facebook likes via fb ads is much more targeted and beneficial than buying fake likes from fiverr or other sites.

 

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[ddinnov]

*Update*

I've been doing a lot of experimenting with facebook and starting to get somewhere. I've been trying to get cheap traffic that converts with my squeeze page and today am seeing some results. It's early but after sending paid ads to my squeeze page and not seeing great conversions or CPC I tries promoting posts.

I made few image posts and quotes - not really much traction

I wrote an article on my blog and linked to it in a sponsored FB post with an image and long-ish description (2 paragraphs) - not much back

I wrote an entire article on a FB post and added a quirky picture with a quote - hardly anything.

I removed the post with the article and posted to my blog here instead:

http://tradertransform.com/3-ways-to-stop-anger-and-frustration-from-derailing-your-trading-dreams/

Then I posted a link to it with a quirky picture/quote and 1 sentence asking a question "Are you letting anger make bad trading decisions you later regret?"

-Bingo - Since sponsoring the FB post I've had 10 clicks at $0.11/click and 4 opt-ins. That's $0.275/lead in the FX niche who I can nurture and market my product and good quality affiliate products to.

I'm becoming an introducing broker for my broker as well and they will pay me £2.50 for every £10 traded by anyone I refer...

So good content leading to an opt in form at the end of the post promoted by a sponsored FB post with a quirky attention grabbing picture+question+URL.

Gonna build that list and make as much hay as I can while this sun is shining. I wonder how much those same clicks would cost on Adwords...

 

[ddinnov]

This ad (sponsored FB post) has now yielded 4 opt ins and 24 clicks. The CPC is now $0.05 and the CTR is just over 10%.

The download page also has a link to a $7 CPL (cost per lead) affiliate offer and of the 4 opt-ins to my list I've had one conversion for the CPA.

So having spent $1.24 so far in traffic I've got 4 subscribers and $5.76 net profit in commissions.

Trying not to get too excited but I'm ready to scale this one up as far as it will go!

Only about 274 impressions so far out of the 110,000 'reach' according to the targeting.

 

[ddinnov]

Me again,

Had some progress, a bit slow but I've been juggling this with my actual trading as I want to actually practice what I preach in my fast lane business so being active in the markets is key.

Soooo....

Been doing a fair bit of facebook stuff, getting some action but not to much. I need to become very consistent with regular content creation on the blog, FB page and newsletter. Systematizing this for weekly blog posts to start with.

Squeeze page - I experimented with a long form squeeze page which is more of an article - you can see it here:

http://tradertransform.com/why-most-traders-fail/

It has a much lower opt in rate however the leads have much higher open and click through rates with the newsletters. So I'm going for quality over quantity here.

I haven't had the product sales page in the funnel recently but I'm reintroducing it as a "soft" OTO (one time offer). So when they click the email confirmation link instead of shoving a one time screaming sales page in their face they go to a page offering them the option to see a one time offer or click through instead to the freebie they signed up for.

I have a 500 click solo ad lined up for when I have sorted out my funnel for this.

I also switched from Aweber to get response so in the process of setting up paypal etc.

Also changed hosting, theme and got new content and split testing plug ins. The tech side is quite fiddly (especially with prosper 202) but I have baseline figures on normal opt ins (about 25% opt in on long form squeeze page).

Soon will have baseline figures on front end product conversion and be ready to start testing.

Next milestone is to get front end sales covering advertising costs so prospect/customer acquisition is free.

Then get going on back (affiliate) end revenue

Then create a higher ticket info product.

I've paid a 7 figure marketer to work with me on copy and testing. We're shooting for $500,000 in sales this year...

 

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[ddinnov]

Got a 500 click solo ad booked to test the funnel on Wednesday and build out the list some more. Hopefully will make some sales and cover some if not all - or even turn a profit on front end lead/customer acquisition.

It's all focused on my own product now. Been very quiet and inconsistent with the blog and social media channels. Got to get on top of that and be regular and consistent. Things are settling down a bit now I'm no longer about to move house.

Let's see some good numbers and feedback later this week