As many of you will know, last week I stuck to my promise of launching a Podcast in the new year and released the first episode, ‘How I Would Make Money Online If I Was Starting from Scratch‘. I had hoped that a lot of people would get some value from the recording and be able to start 2012 in style, but I didn’t anticipate what happened next. Within 24 hours the podcast made it to #1 in Marketing and #2 in Business on iTunes which totally blew me away – sandwiched in between 9 podcasts by the BBC and the Financial Times.

In just 6 days (I don’t have stats for the last 24 hours yet) the first show has been downloaded over 18,000 times. Keep in mind that I didn’t even write a blog post about the launch, so the majority of my audience are only hearing about the episodes now. Episodes was not a typo. I’m adding another recording in the next 24 hours.

When I was working in a clothes shop, dreaming of making a living from the internet, I remember one thing that really kept me motivated was reading success stories from other people. Just knowing that someone, somewhere was doing exactly what I wanted to do was enough to keep me putting in the hours.

Earlier in the year I shared an example of two moms making over $5k/m online. Today I want to share another case study with you and reveal how one guy in New Zealand is making up to $10,000 every single month in the Forex industry, one of the most profitable but competitive industries online.

In my post on how to become a niche rockstar I said that in order to be at the top of your industry (in a lot of cases online) it’s important to know as much about it as possible. What your competitors are doing, how they’re making money and how they’re getting traffic are just a few things that you can discover with some in-depth niche research.

In that particular post I looked at the green industry from the perspective of a blogger and shared some of my findings. Based on some of the comments and emails I received at the time, a few of you were interested in how I collected the stats I did and how you could go about investigating your own niche further. I’m going to expand on that topic today, in the way I always do.

Though the title of this blog is ‘viral marketing’, regular readers will know that it’s far from being the only thing I talk about. Sometimes I’ll share a case study to inspire you. Sometimes I’ll offer insights to educate you, and sometimes I’ll give you step-by-step advice so you can take action.

This post is, purely and simply, for those who want more from their lives. If you’re happy with the position you’re in or at least like how you spend your days, then skip this post and come back next week (I have $7K/m case study on the way). Today I’m simply sharing what I wish someone else had written a few months ago when I was once again at the busiest point in my life and questioning the direction I found myself heading.

There’s more documentation on ‘how to make money online’ than most subjects out there, yet I can safely say that 99% of people who try to replace their offline income fail to do so. Many of you have seen the case studies of marketers – who clearly already know what they’re doing – building another successful website. Inspiring? Without a doubt. But obviously there’s still something missing.

For a long time I wondered what it would take to fill that gap. What would increase the number of people who follow advice in this space and actually achieve some form of success. Then the answer came to me. Or rather, she did.