Does Your Internet Marketing Campaign Need Some Duct Tape?

Duct tape. I can’t think of any other indispensable item. Well, maybe my Blackberry, but that still can not do what...

Does Your Internet Marketing Campaign Need Some Duct Tape?

12 Ways For Affiliates To Use Articles For Free And Continuous Website Traffic

Affiliate marketing depends on website traffic. Article marketing is one of those ways to funnel great...

12 Ways For Affiliates To Use Articles For Free And Continuous Website Traffic

10 New Year’s Commitments Every Internet Marketers Should Make And Keep

New Year’s Resolutions are a dime a dozen during the change from the old year to the new one....

10 New Year's Commitments Every Internet Marketers Should Make And Keep

What Is An Article?

Article marketing is something that many people just do not understand. Writing an article to promote your website is a very powerful marketing medium. Unfortunately,...

What Is An Article?

Best Blogging Tip Ever!

While this is not really a site on blogging tips, keeping a blog is a very powerful marketing technique. With a blog you can easily keep a fresh supply of...

Best Blogging Tip Ever!

Special Website Traffic Edition Coming Next Week

By Tim • January 27, 2010 • View Comments

I kind of knew it was coming.

Last week I announced that I was going to be doing a special series of articles for the subscribers of my email newsletter – Marketing Success and Profit. I am still going to be doing this special series of newsletter issues, but just a few days late.

I’ve been fighting a flu and serious migraine headaches since the weekend and just can not seem to get over them. Until today, I thought I was going to have to finally just chop my head off and be done with it. However, it looks like I am starting to feel better (at least I can look at the computer screen without squinting) and back to a normal schedule. At least I hope.

Anyway, what this means is the 10 Daily Steps To More Web Traffic will be starting on Monday of next week. But, this is also a blessing. I have decided to add a few more components to this special series. Things like;

- special downloadable pdf with the entire series in it. (this will cost $47 after series is over for non-subscribers)
- special audio that will only be for subscribers only.
- special discounts on services to take advantage of the daily steps.

If you want to get in on this special series that I will be starting on Monday, then go to the sign up page and get in on the journey.

Categories: Advertising, How-To, Series
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Diversity For Online Business Success

By Tim • January 23, 2010 • View Comments

One of the hard statistics about online marketing is that the failure rate is quite high. While the statistics might not be as high as many people say, the rate is still quite high.

I have been talking with a lot of people this week and the theme is all the same. Failure, or on the verge of quitting. We can sit and debate all day long the many different reasons for this, but when it comes right down to it, there are really two reasons. The first one is passion in your business and marketing. If you don’t have it. You will not succeed. It is really that simple.

The second reason is a little more involved. It is one thing to really love what you do, have a great passion for the product, but passion by itself will leave you as much of a failure as not having it at all. You must add another element; diversity.

Diversity In Every Part Of Internet Marketing

Unfortunately, many people do not realize that this is their downfall. They can attribute the failure to choosing the wrong affiliate product, not having enough money, or not working hard enough. While these factors may be true, it is not the underlying reason for the failure.

Diversity means that you are spreading out, growing, and flexible. You’ve probably heard the old saying, “Don’t put all your eggs into one basket.” Well, there is a lot of truth in that short statement.

When you sign up for one type of affiliate program, one marketing opportunity, or one type of service, you are severely limiting yourself. You do not have to go crazy and try to manage hundreds of different websites, services, and products. However, you should make it a point to diversify your income.

Diversity in products only is not the only area where it is useful. You should also diversify the actual marketing and advertising.

More Than One Marketing Avenue Means More Traffic

When I first begin working with a new client, we talk about their current advertising. Sadly, this only consists of one of two things. The usual is email ads (that are poorly written), or articles (same poorly written content). They have read countless times that they need to use email marketing and content marketing for tons of traffic. Only, they miss the point of using other advertising materials to supplement these two forms of marketing.

- Social Media Networking
- PPC
- Video Marketing
- Viral Downloadable Products
- Joint Ventures
- Blogging
- And many other different marketing ideas.

Why is it so important to diversify in both your offerings and your marketing? Simply, because you never know what tomorrow is going to bring. You never know what people will be more attracted to, or what will motivate them. What works today, may not work a month from now… or, even tomorrow.

Think about how you can add some diversity into your online marketing business. Do you need to add another product? Is there some marketing avenue you are not using? You can work very hard at getting nowhere, and sliding backwards. Add some diversity into your marketing to see growth and increased income.

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Categories: Advertising, Affiliate, Success Tips
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Growth In Your Online Business

By Tim • January 22, 2010 • View Comments

Growth – Every organic, living, natural thing grows. It has to. It is the natural occurrence. The only way it will not grow is because it is dead. Internet marketing is a living entity. It is something that breathes, bleeds, and can die if not taken care of.

When you are born your body begins to grow. Of course, it does not grow on its own. Your parents are there to nurture you, feed you, keep you warm and safe from anything that wants to harm us. Likewise, an online business needs the same type of nurturing in order to grow.

Internet Marketing Growth Must Happen

Many people get into internet marketing, network marketing, and affiliate marketing with thoughts of huge paychecks within a few months. While this can happen, it is not the norm. But, that should not discourage anyone from pursuing these large paychecks. It is just going to take some growth.

When you start walking as a child, you do not immediately start running. You fall a lot. You will even need to have a little help once in awhile. You grow into your feet. You grow into your legs. You grow into having enough strength, and balance, for taking more steps.

Your online business must grow. Is it? Are you taking bigger steps in your marketing? Are you getting help from those that can? Have you made a commitment to nurture your business, and feed it, so that it continues to be healthy, strong, and productive?

Just thought I would give you something to think about.

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Categories: Affiliate, Success Tips
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Special 10 Part Daily Tips For More Website Traffic

By Tim • January 21, 2010 • View Comments

Today, in my newsletter, Marketing Success and Profit, I announced a special daily series that I will be doing starting on Monday. It doesn’t have any big, high profile type title, but it is going to be as practical as I can make it.

The daily series, “10 Daily Steps Towards More Traffic” (see, I told you it wasn’t that exciting of a title), is going to cover ten aspects of getting more website traffic. These steps are going to be real things that you can do as soon as you read that day’s issue.

I am not going to be reprinting them here on the blog. I am not going to be releasing it as a free autoresponder course afterwards either. I am going to turn it into a report though. There will be a small fee to access it though. So, this will be the only time you can get this daily course for free.

Get Your 10 Steps To More Traffic…

The only way you are going to be able to get this short little special course for free is by going to my ezine sign up page and subscribe.

I hope that you will take the time to subscribe today.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

Categories: Advertising, Affiliate, Series
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Does Your Internet Marketing Campaign Need Some Duct Tape?

By Tim • January 20, 2010 • View Comments

Duct tape. I can’t think of any other indispensable item. Well, maybe my Blackberry, but that still can not do what duct tape can do. In the world of internet marketing and advertising we do not usually think about duct tape. But, there are times when you might have to make some slight repairs – or even major repairs – to your advertising in order to make some mid-course corrections.

This is quite common in first time advertising campaigns. Sometimes you have either centered on the wrong keyword phrase, the wrong angle, the wrong audience, or the landing page just is not producing very well for you. There are several reasons why an internet marketing campaign is not working. Sometimes it takes a complete overhaul. Sometimes it just takes a little bit of duct tape.

Fixing Your Online Marketing With Duct Tape

I was talking with a new client yesterday about their current advertising campaign. I like to get a feel for what they have done, what they are doing, and what they would like to see before I start making any plans. Sometimes I only need to add a little content. There are other times when I need to sit them down and plainly let them know their advertising sucks. Thankfully, I did not have to do that this time. All this person really needed was a little duct tape. Some holes in their advertising had to be plugged up and a few changes here and there.

However, it wasn’t until I noticed this post at Gizmodo about a plane that was fixed by duct tape after a bear mauled it that I began to put it into an internet marketing aspect.

My first reaction was the same as the author of the post. I just did not believe it. But, it is just too far out there to not be true.

Not only was the plane repaired with several rolls of duct tape, but it was flown back to safety. In the realm of stories, this is one that I really wish I could have been a part of and could tell to everyone every chance I got. Just for the fact that fixing a plane with duct tape beats out anything else ever made with duct tape. Ever.

Then my mind turned to internet marketing. What a great analogy for the little fixes that are needed with a failing online marketing campaign.

Little Fixes – Big Results

This is the plane before it was duct tape-ified. Before the problems were fixed. Your online marketing campaign might not be as badly damaged as this one, but the results are the same. It just will not fly.

Internet marketing, especially affiliate and network marketing, is a pretty fickle monster. There are times when anything will work. It does not matter what you have for copy on your landing page, the webpage visitors will sign up for your mailing list, and buy the products. There are other times, when a small trickle will do what you want them to. Then, there are times when it is as if a bear has mauled your plane.

In every case, though, it just might be that a small fix – a duct tape fix – can drastically improve your response rates. A small change to a word in the heading of your landing page can capture the emotions causing higher results. A different picture can give the same response through visual means. Adding a video can make your page personal.

But, what about the actual advertising campaign itself?

Instead of fixing the webpages, you might have to change some of the actual advertising materials. You might need to focus on a new audience for your content. A slight change in the focus of your articles can make a big difference in getting click throughs. Your email ads might need to be sent to a smaller niche. Or, you could add something like a multi part email course, or social networking avenue.

The point is this…

If you find that you are not getting the response that you would like to see in your advertising campaign, look at using some duct tape.

Categories: Advertising, Affiliate
Tags: , , ,

Your Daily Kick – Jan. 18, 2010 – Fix Your Landing Page

By Tim • January 18, 2010 • View Comments

The Your Daily Kick is the place to find daily advertising tips, motivation, and success principles to help you on your online marketing journey. Use these tips in your online marketing plan for daily traffic, long lasting success, and higher profits.

Today’s Your Daily Kick is all about landing pages.

Affiliate marketing is all about the landing page that you direct traffic to. This landing page (squeeze page, capture page, or whatever else you want to call it) can be a simple one page website, a few pages of content, or a full blown blog site with a special page dedicated to capture leads and pre-selling the product. Whichever way that you want to create one, a landing page, is the key to your overall affiliate marketing success.

This is the one page on your site that will;

- pre-sell the visitor into clicking to merchant site,

- deliver a power packed statement about the affiliate product,

- collect email addresses for building email list,

- create awareness about the product with news clips, videos, or special downloadable reports,

- and even show a video demonstrating the product, among other things.

The importance of creating really good landing pages has been talked about endlessly by many different people. There is some really great information about how to make great looking, and great selling, landing pages, but so few marketers actually put this advice into practice. Each week I am presented with a the opportunity to work with new clients that need help with their internet marketing and advertising. One of the biggest problems I see when doing my initial research into their current advertising, one thing I find more than anything else is that there is a poorly designed landing page – or, the complete lack of one.

Landing Pages – Fix Yours Today

Today’s daily kick is all about getting you motivated to fix that landing page. Or, create a landing page of your own! I’m not going to go into the actual “how to create a landing page”, or “how to design a landing page,” but I do want to get you started on the road to having a very good landing page.

Landing pages are integral to your overall affiliate marketing, network marketing, email list building, service providing, or info product selling success. Without one, you are simply shooting a shotgun loaded with birdshot at a small target 50 yards away. Very slim chance of hitting anything.

Creating a landing page, or fixing the one you have, will help you bring that shot into closer and the target, much easier to hit. However… you have to do it. Do not take the importance of a landing page for granted. Make it your priority today to do something about your landing page.

Easiest Way To Create Landing Pages

With the invention of WordPress, there is simply no other better way to create landing pages. With a good webhost, you can easily create several landing pages with WordPress. You can use WordPress.org for a free version, but it is much better to have your own domain and your own host. You do not even have to know how to design anything.

One of the biggest problems in creating landing pages is the design aspect. I am simply horrible and graphic design. I can see what I want, I just can not make it happen. However, with WordPress, I simply use a theme already included with it (just make some simple changes), or I can use something like The Thesis Theme for WordPress or Affiliate Theme. They have tremendous themes that are easily customizable and create incredible looking landing pages.

The point of today is not to get you to buy something. But, to get you to do something about that hideous landing page! Go fix it. Go spruce it up a little. Even a small change to the heading, or some of the subtitles, or a few of the words in your copy will give it a huge

Landing Page Video Resources

Here are a few videos you can check out to help you with your landing page design. One is a short video by SEOMOz that shows some landing page optimization tricks. It is really very informative and only a few minutes long. The second video is a complete webinar. There is a lot of information, but it is also over an hour long. If you have the time, check it out.

Thesis Theme for WordPress: Options Galore and a Helpful Support Community

Good Luck!

Categories: Affiliate, Copywriting, Your Daily Kick
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12 Ways For Affiliates To Use Articles For Free And Continuous Website Traffic

By Tim • January 16, 2010 • View Comments

traffic Affiliate marketing depends on website traffic. Article marketing is one of those ways to funnel great amounts of free traffic to your website.

Writing articles, submitting them to article directories, and then waiting for people to read them is still a great way to deliver quality content to the masses. The articles are indexed by the search engines, and – if your keyword research has been done right – it will be ranked relatively high. But, that all seems a bit archaic today. Sure, it still works. I write tons of articles every month for clients and submit them to article directories for free traffic. But, there is more to article marketing than just the basic write/submit routine.

Getting More Affiliate Traffic From Your Articles

I have always believed that the true beauty of online marketing is the creative aspect of it. There are no real limits to what you can do with your marketing – this is so true for affiliates. Affiliate marketing is more than landing pages, PPC campaigns, and writing articles. Affiliate marketing is really about creativity. How to get your message, or a certain product, out to as many people as you can for as long as you can.

In my business, one of the things I have always strived to be is in the forefront of creativity. All of the marketing materials, consulting sessions, and advertising campaigns that I have put together are based upon this one principle… creativity.

Article marketing is a great way to keep the creative juices flowing. Of course, article marketing is also a great way for sustained free traffic. A lot of people think that this will mean spending long hours writing hundreds of new articles. And, it does. I do not want to make it sound like writing articles does not take any time. (This is why outsourcing your article marketing needs is a big benefit!). However, you can get more use out of one article than just submitting to an article directory. Here are 15 ways that you can do that.

Read more »

Categories: Advertising, Affiliate, Article Marketing, Blogging
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Your Daily Kick – Jan. 15, 2010 – Make A Video

By Tim • January 15, 2010 • View Comments

I truly believe that if you do not embrace new technologies then you are going to be left behind very quickly. Creating videos for affiliate marketing, online advertising, and building your brand is something that many people are starting to do. You just have to look at YouTube to see that. A lot of the videos are affiliate videos, or teaching videos, from one website or another. I even wrote a short post on getting your video going now.

Today is the day that video plays a part in your overall marketing strategy.

Video Creates Internet Marketing Stars

Online video has come full circle. Many people are using video today on their blogs, on video websites, and even as a way to do instant live discussions using a site like Qik.

Taking advantage of his very powerful medium will really help you not only advertise your website, but also build a strong authoritative voice for yourself and your business. This is really the goal. Once people can have another way to connect with you – the real you, not the anonymous you – results become much higher, and faster.

Many online business owners, however, are a little hesitant to use online video as a means of marketing their products and services. I can certainly understand this. I am still having some hesitancy in this department. However, I am ready to make that jump. In fact, I have already recorded several for a new product I am making called ‘Story‘ at SocialMediaMarketerTips.com.

Not That Hard To Do

When you really get down to the actual ‘how to make a video for online marketing’ basics, it is not all that hard to do. If you have a video camera, a web cam, or even a cell phone with video capability, you can make a video. One major misconception is that you need to have an expensive camera in order to make good videos. That just is not the case. Most marketers use the Flip video camera. It only costs around $150 and is very easy to use.

Two Minutes Is All You Need

You also do not need to create a full length feature movie. A few minutes of you is enough. The content is entirely up to you, but you should gear it towards the topic of your site. For example, if you want to drive traffic to your landscaping and gardening website, you could do short videos on how to transfer plants or any other aspect of gardening. You could also do short little informational videos about flowers, techniques, and different tools.

Once you have the video shot, then do some simple editing and then upload to your website, your social networking site, or YouTube. Before too long you will have built up a large following, and people who can not wait for the next “show”.

Easy Video Tips To Making One Today.

Since I am definitely not an expert in using video for online and social marketing, there are some things that I think are very important.

1. Know what you are going to say. There is nothing worse than someone stalling, and going through a lot of “ummm” and “ahhh” on the video. Write out a short script, or rehearse beforehand.

2. Make it short. We already touched on this, but people do not want to sit and watch long videos. Two to three minutes is enough.

3. Get the the point quickly. To help make the video short, cut out any fluff, or other things that will take away from what you want to say. Just get to the point quickly.

4. Be natural. You do not have to act like you are going for an Oscar. Just be the regular you, doing what you usually do.

5. Good lighting. Trying to watch a video that is dark or hard to see is not a lot of fun. Make sure you have a lot of good natural lighting, or that your room is well lit.

6. Have fun with it. Doing something that is not a lot of fun can get to be a hardship rather than a benefit. Enjoy it. Be creative. Do different things. But, have fun doing it.

Go Make Your Video… Now!

So, go ahead. Set up your video camera and shoot that short little video. Upload it to your Facebook profile, a YouTube profile, or directly to your website. But, just do it.

Once you get your video uploaded some where, why not let us know where? I’d love to see it!

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Categories: Advertising, Affiliate, Your Daily Kick, video
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Your Daily Kick – Jan. 13, 2010 – Drop A Comment

By Tim • January 13, 2010 • View Comments

Your Daily Kick is my daily commitment to deliver solid steps for you to take in your internet marketing journey. Today’s kick is one we have visited before, but something you should do now…

Drop A Comment

Commenting on blogs is a method of attracting targeted traffic for a few years now. When it first started, the comments were something like, “Great blog! Check out my blog too!” Oddly enough, it worked. You would not receive thousands of new hits to your own website, but you would begin to receive new traffic. Today, this type of comment does not work. In most cases, it will not even be approved by the moderator. So, dropping a comment on a blog is not a quick process.

Comment Today

Before you travel to your favorite blog and begin dropping comments, there are some things you should first keep in mind.

1. Always keep the comment on topic.

2. When commenting on a blog post you have two choices; agree and expand on the point being made, or disagree and offer a civil rebuttal.

3. Comment on blogs that you want to be a fixture at. What this means is that you are willing to join in several of the conversations that are happening on the blog.

4. Only place a link in your comment if it is relevant to your point. Other readers will find your blog by simply clicking on your name.

5. Commenting on blogs is not a place for overt advertising. It is a relationship bridge.

Find Five Blogs To Comment On

Your task today is to find five blogs that you can leave a comment on. Make sure that they are all relevant to your own website. Follow the five steps outlined above and you should start to see some traffic from it. After you have done your commenting, do not let it stop there. Continue to build up a list of other blog sites that you can visit on a daily basis and see what is now.

The easiest way to do that is through RSS feeds and Google Reader.

After The Comment – Added Marketing Power

Here is a little tip to give today’s daily kick a little more marketing power. After you have found five blogs to comment on, and after you have left your great comment; go social with it.

If you have a Twitter account (and if you do not, start one!), then Tweet the blog post to your followers. This will not only help the website owner get a little more traffic, but also expose your comment to more people.

So, there you have today’s assignment. Give it a try and drop me a comment about your results.

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Categories: Advertising, Blogging, Your Daily Kick
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Your Daily Kick – January 12, 2010 – Make A New Contact!

By Tim • January 12, 2010 • View Comments

One of the best activities in your daily marketing routine that you can do is to make a new connection, or contact. This is also one of the most uncomfortable internet marketing activity. Several years ago, you could remain pretty much anonymous and still create a great deal of traffic, sales, and authority. With the new rules of social media, and networking, this is no longer the case.

In order to get the most out of your online business, make it a priority to meet a few new people each week. This is something that can greatly increase your marketing leverage without spending any more in your advertising budget to do it. Meeting new people will do a few things for you.

1. You broaden your network of business contacts and friends.

2. You receive recommendations for other people who can help you.

3. Your new contacts will now recommend you to their connections.

4. New joint ventures can happen overnight because of the contacts that you made.

5. You know that there are other people doing the same thing you are.

Make A New Contact Today!

Putting feet to your business is the only way that you will be able to compete in today’s incredibly fast paced online world. However, you must get over your fears of meeting new people. If you are one of those people who can instantly reach out to new people and strike up interesting conversations, that is great! But, if you are like me… then you need to make this a top priority on your to do list.

Make a new contact today. With social networking that is very easy to do. Open up any type of social networking account and you can make several new contacts on a daily basis. For me, there are three that work very well.

Twitter. Find new people, that you do not know, and introduce yourself by following them and using the @reply feature. Reply to something they wrote, or answer a question they asked. However, the key is to be a part of their stream.

Facebook. Another great way to meet a new person each day is with Facebook. You probably have several friends on your account now, but how much do you really interact with them? Send a message about their recent blog post, comment on a status, or recommend them in your update. Join a group and talk with people there, and interact on fan pages. The key is not to just collect “friends”, but to meet them and get to know them.

LinkedIn. The last of the sites is LinkedIn. This is mostly for business professionals, but anyone can take advantage of the site. Meet new people on a daily basis and get to know their business. You might need them some day.

Go Ahead, Make A New Contact!

Chances are, you are already involved on these sites. Use them today to make a contact that you can begin to cultivate, keep in touch with, and interact with.

Categories: Advertising, How-To, Social Marketing, Your Daily Kick
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