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Posted by Rochelle in Earlier today I received an email from someone asking if Crowd Mountain (aka CM) was one of those programs that hooks you into joining, then says you need to buy this, that, AND the other thing to be successful. Her question was valid, as it can be hard enough justifying the monthly fee of the initial program.
Since I am sure that this person is not alone is wondering or fearing this, I will share what I know. I have been a CM member since day one, so I certainly have more knowledge than many at this point, simply because I’ve been through all the modules.
Market Samarai is the only tool that Michelle has strongly recommended that CM members purchase after joining that is pretty much necessary for what she is teaching. Believe me, I know how much it hurts to get into a monthly subscription and then realize you are being asked to shell out even more bucks. Please know that you do NOT have to use Market Samarai if you don’t want to. There are other CM members who are using the free Google keyword research tool or Micro Niche Finder. The research isn’t as thorough, but it can be done.
The first time I heard about Market Samarai was prior to joining CM, after I wrote a post comparing WordTracker to Micro Niche Finder. Someone stated what a great keyword research tool it was. At that time, I looked at the website, and that was it.
After joining CM, I checked it out again, downloaded the free trial, then purchased it. They had a sale recently and I was fortunate enough to get in on the sale (sadly, I don’t think they will have another one). I can say in all honesty that it is THE best keyword research tool I’ve used, and I was a member of WordTracker, so can compare it to that. The features are outstanding and the information is excellent. It is worth every penny, even at full price.
I believe that you can continue to use Market Samarai’s keyword research feature, even after the trial period is over. You just won’t have access to the other features. So, actually, I don’t think you even have to pay for it to use it as Michelle does in CM. If I am wrong on this, someone please correct me.
There have been two other times when Michelle has recommended items that cost money in CM, but they are not required, nor did Michelle push them. One was a plugin (I forget what it’s called but I passed on it – I think it was for adding ads any where within blog posts), and the other is Datafeedr.
Datafeedr is the program Michelle uses for creating affiliate stores. It is sort of like BANS, but so much better. Even if you are new to CM, you will have access to her tutorials on creating datafeed affiliate stores, as these posts are not part of the Bootcamp Modules. It is in these posts that Michelle goes into detail about how to create affiliate niche stores using Datafeedr. She does state, however, that she will also explain how to create affiliate niche stores using other methods (I’m not sure what methods at this time, as she did not say).
Datafeedr is pricy, but the price varies depending on the plan you choose. I bit, and joined Datafeedr. I didn’t have to, as I also have phpBay Pro, phpZon, and other affiliate site generating tools. But Datafeedr is in the process of adding Amazon and eBay datafeeds, and I was won over by that fact (the people at Datafeedr don’t have a release date yet, but say it will be soon). I decided to join and get comfortable with using them before they add Amazon and eBay.
As an unrelated side-note, I have to add that the owners of Datafeedr are outstanding in their support. I had a few problems and they were right on top of getting things right. They truly stand behind their product.
Datafeedr is an amazingly easy way to build affiliate niche stores. Plus, it looks much more professional (at least to me) than BANS stores. So, you don’t have to join Datafeedr, but if you do, you will probably find it much easier than BANS was/is. I tend to shy away from reoccuring monthly costs, which Datafeedr has, but I am counting on being able to earn back the monthly fee in affiliate commissions.
Plus, one great benefit about Datafeedr is that you get to keep your stores (the affiliate feeds used to generate products) even if you quit Datafeedr. That is a huge benefit. There is another program that is very similar (Pop Shops?) that also has a monthly fee, but when you quit, you lose the affiliate contents of every site using them. In essence, your niche stores become worthless.
In closing, no, you do not have to join or purchase anything else to benefit from being a member of Crowd Mountain. Whatever programs Michelle suggests that do cost money are just that, suggestions. You can get along without them, or by using the trial versions (in the case of Market Samarai).
If any of you have any other questions regarding Crowd Mountain, please ask. You probably aren’t the only one wondering whatever may be going through your mind, and I’m more than happy to share my knowledge/experiences/whatever with you. Personally, I had nightmares about making the decision to join up with Michelle’s program. I feared that I’d be wasting my money. So, I understand the difficulty and seriousness of this decision.
Hi Rochelle,
I received your email and clicked on Market Samarai for the discount but it
has been discontinued. Do you have another discount link?
Thanks,
Phil
Hi Phil,
Sorry, but you missed out on the Market Samarai discount. They stated that it would be their last discount, so, if they are true to their word, then you won’t see another discount for it.
On the plus side, it is worth every penny, even if not on sale.
Rochelle
Hi Rochelle,
I signed up for Crowd Mountain after reading your review here and on ScriptCritics. I make a full time living from home already from internet marketing (mainly epn and adsense), so I wasn’t sure if it would be worthwhile. However, I have to admit, I have already learned quite a bit, and I’m only on the second module!
Anyway, I just purchased Market Samurai yesterday for $97. When I downloaded the trial version last week, I received an email from them that I could purchase the full version for 35% off if I purchased it within 7 days.
For anyone on the fence, I definitely recommend downloading the trial version. It’s an amazing tool, not only for keyword research and competition analysis, but also for link building.
Dawn,
I’m so glad to hear that you are finding value in Crowd Mountain. Even better to hear that you got a discount on Market Samarai!
Speaking of Market Samarai, they JUST released an upgrade. I watched the video about the upgrade, which explains about how much faster the upgrade will complete keyword research. They also said there are some unannounced new features of this upgrade, but they didn’t explain them. I have found one of the unannounced features, and it makes finding backlinks SUPER easy. Look for the twisty little arrow next to a word or phrase and click it…
Rochelle
Howdy!
Thanks everyone for your information of CM.
I have been sitting here trying to justify the cost of CM. I am encouraged since I watched Michelle’s demo on Market Samarai, it is by far one of the better video I have seem, and I have seems lots of them. She is very clear and precise with her presentation method. I also like her straight forwardness without the hype and emphasis
on ” you gonna make this make $$$$$”. No hype talk, no filler, just straight up information that you can use.
( I think I just talked myself into signing up ).
P.S. On Market Samarai. I discoverd MS about a year ago going through 30DC, I think I passed an offer for less than $50 last August 08. I rediscovered it again a few months ago. I purchased a couple weeks ago for $97. However, I was having problem with my email, so I log in to another account, and found out that the offer were for $147. I dont know exactly what had happened, but if you try to log in under different email, you might get different offers… the $97 offer does have a one week trial period, and you must make the purchase during the 7days.
I think I am gonna sign up for CM now…
thanks for all the info….
Please keep on posting ….
Welch
P.S. CM has a trial 12days for $1.00…
Signing up right now…
Welch,
I’d be happy to continue posting : )
Re: The $1 trial for Crowd Mountain – Michelle is temporarily offering a 12 day trial. If you do not see the offer, try refreshing your browser. If you are unable to see this offer, then Michelle may have removed it. It’s a great deal, and a great way to look under the hood before purchasing, so to speak.
Rochelle
Rochelle, I am also a CM member, and am having major problems with Market Samurai that they haven’t been able to fix (won’t pull Title Comp at all, which sort of renders the research useless). Are you still using MS with no problem? I don’t know how to pass this information on to Michelle.
Hi Lori,
Sorry for not responding sooner – I only just now saw your comment (problem with my email). I actually emailed MS about the problem you mentioned. Here is what their tech support wrote to me about this:
“At the moment, the dev team is working on resolving the cause of this issue.
The cause of these problems is our internal proxy list is under an extreme amount of stress lately – and is unfortunately struggling to cope with the demand of Market Samurai users.
While we don’t yet have a resolution, as a workaround you can switch off the built-in proxies list, under File>Settings>Proxies. Before doing so, please watch the following video from Brent, which explains the downside of not using the built-in proxies at http://bit.ly/18QstR”
I hope this helps.
Rochelle
I have nothing but good things to say about Crowd Mountain. Michelle holds nothing back and she gets straight to the point. I love her style. She walks you through every step of the way along with explaining why.
If you are looking for affiliate marketing training don’t hesitate to join her. She is absolutely awesome!