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.
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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.
1. Create A Video From It – Creating a video for affiliate marketing is a great way to get further free advertising. It is pretty simple to do and can be quite fun. Use your article and create a video on that article. You can read it into the camera, but it probably will not be very popular. But, if you spend a little time rehearsing your presentation, you can turn that article into a video.
2. Develop A Short Report – Articles for affiliate marketing work the best when they are within the 400 to 500 word range. Short, concise and easy to read. Expand on that article a little more and create a downloadable report. This can contain more information, more tips, special newsworthy items, or other things you feel are important. You can host this report on your own site, on a landing page all its own, or on a site like Scribd.com or Docstoc.
3. Rewrite Article Different Ways – I have an older post about this way to get extra mileage out of an article. The idea of this is to create three different articles, based on one, and submit to other article directories.
4. Tweet It – Twitter is a great way to get your message out. One way to be creative in your article marketing is to send a series of “tweets” that cover your article points. You only have 140 characters to use at a time, but you could break up the different points of your article into smaller bite size portions.
5. Create A Longer Squidoo Page From It – Squidoo is a place you can create a “lens” on the topic of your choice. It is like a blog only in the respect that you can write about what you want. You monetize each lens through different affiliate links an Adsense. Use your article to create a Squidoo lens. You can reword it a little if you want, add more content, embed videos, and other cool things to make your article more interactive.
6. Develop Autoresponder Series – You can do this either with one article, or with a bundle of articles all on the same topic. Create a short email series that breaks up a longer article into different main points, or uses a series of articles.
7. Use Article In Teleseminar – Setting up a teleseminar is a pretty easy thing to do. And, you can host your own teleseminar for free. The amount of people who can attend is limited, but usually there is not a problem. Host a teleseminar on the topic of your article where you can simply read it over the course of the seminar. Pause for questions or remarks, and even invite a special guest. If you have several articles, then you can have a series of seminars on all of them.
8. Get Article In Someone Else’s Product – Getting extra exposure for your article will help you gain more traffic that you might not have gotten otherwise. This extra exposure can come from other website owners. This tip will take a little digging on your part, but it is worth the time. When you find out that someone is writing a report, a course, an ebook, or some other type of product, strike up a conversation with them about the topic. From there you can introduce them to an article you wrote. Ask their permission to send a copy and maybe they will include the information – and your byline – in their new product, on their website, on their blog, or mention it somewhere else.
9. Use As A Facebook Note – Facebook has a great feature called Notes. This is where you can write down different information in the form of short articles. You can even connect the notes to your blog posts. Reprint your article within your Facebook notes and your connections will be notified of them.
10. Send To Mailing List – When you write a particularly good article, make it a special mailing to your email list. This does not need to be in the form of a newsletter or an ad. Simply a personal letter with the article in the body, or a link to it on your site.
11. Combine To Make Ebook – After you have several articles on the same topic, you can combine them into an ebook form. With a little rewriting, rewording, or editing to make it all go together smoothly, you can even sell it for a small fee.
12. Use Article To Answer Question – Participating in forums is a powerful way to get extra traffic. Combine your forum activity with your article marketing only creates double exposure. When someone asks a question that is directly related to your article, you can either repost the article as the answer (if this is allowed by the moderator) or direct the forum readers to it through a link to your site where it is hosted.
Article Marketing Creatively For Extra Free Traffic
Writing articles for affiliate marketing does not have to be a dull activity. Use these different methods to get extra mileage out of your current, and future articles.
Take a look at the articles you have now. Can you do anything else with them besides sitting on a webpage? Choose some of these tips, or come up with your own creative uses for your articles. Doing so will give you extra mileage – or more free traffic – from the articles you have already written.
Have fun!
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New Year’s Resolutions are a dime a dozen during the change from the old year to the new one. Of course, they are usually the same old ones. Lose weight, quit smoking, be more giving, be a better spouse, and on and on. One of the things that most resolutions have in common is that they are ill fated to last.
Why?
Mostly because there is no real commitment to it. It is just something that is made up on the spur of the moment to make sure you have done the “resolution” thing. Coming into 2010 I did not make any New Year’s Resolutions. Rather, I made New Year’s Commitments. These commitments are birthed out of desire and necessity. Instead of going into a long ramble about what I am doing, I thought I would put down the main points of the ten most important new year’s commitments that every internet marketer should make.
Internet Marketing Commitments For A New Year
1. Define your goal! Whatever you do, do not head into this new year without a sound, detailed goal on paper. Be as specific as you can be and plan out your entire year. This is not a list of things you would like to accomplish – more, it is a list of what you will accomplish. Many people think it is good enough to put down a wish list. What they would like to do, if they could. I believe there is much more power when you write a list of the things you will accomplish. Sure, it is still a wish list, but you have a different mindset about it.
2. Make A Schedule! Every successful internet marketer has a set schedule that they adhere to very rigidly. There will be times when you will have some distractions – this happens at any work site – but, you must have a schedule of when you work, what you plan to accomplish, what you do on specific days, and even when you will participate in social media and networking.
3. Make Social Media A Priority! Following on the heels of the last point, social media, and social networking, is the way that marketing it moving to at a very rapid pace. If you are already involved with social media marketing, that is great! But, you will have to step it up in order to keep your brand, your website, your services, your product, you yourself in front of the millions of eyes that are out there. The real important part is not to be just involved with Twitter or Facebook, but to expand your horizons with YouTube, and becoming very active specific niche sites.
4. Do Something New! One of the worse things you can do with your online business is always do the same old thing. Believe me, I know. The first few years of my business I didn’t want to try new technology, or new ways of doing things. I wanted to stay with what was comfortable. Today, it is much different. I make it a point, every day, to learn a little bit about something new. To catapult your business much farther than ever before begin doing something new. Make videos, do a podcast, go to seminars, set up your own webinar, it does not matter what you do, just do something new.
5. Create New Content Each Week! Content is still what is going to win the day as far as organic search traffic, viral exposure, and winning the hearts and minds of the people of the Internets. Every week should have some time set aside for creating new content. This content does not have to always be in the form of written. It can be videos, audio, email series, ebook, or anything else that people can grab, use, and give to someone else (or let them know about).
6. Focus On SEO! While you are out doing your socializing with social networking, you must also give SEO (Search Engine Optimization) a major part of your attention. Learn about what makes the search engines love your site and work at it until you get higher and higher rankings.
7. Start A Newsletter! We have all heard that many people think that email is a waste of time. However, many big name marketers are starting to run a separate email newsletter besides their RSS feed. By integrating a newsletter into your marketing efforts you have another platform from which to give out your content. It is not just an advertising medium. It is a content medium. Start and build an email newsletter for a much larger Internet footprint.
8. Focus In On Mobile! This is a two part commitment. We can not deny the fact that the world is going mobile. Mobile phones are no longer just for making phone calls. Accessing the web, answering emails, sending pictures, and making videos are all done with mobile phones. If you want to stay competitive you need to be available anywhere, anytime. Focus on how to move your business towards being more mobile in this new year.
The other part of focusing on mobile is to make your website more mobile friendly. This is one of the things I am working on for my websites now. You can either add a plug in for your Wordpress site, Wordpress Mobile Edition is a fairly decent plug in, or you can have it built into a downloadable application. The plug in would be much easier. 
9. Commit To Building A Business Instead Of A Quick Buck! The one thing that I have seen the most is that most of the people who are getting involved with internet marketing today are looking for a quick dollar. They join one MLM after another in search of the one BIG opportunity that will earn thousands of dollars each week. However, always looking for the ONE BIG THING will not work in the long run. Building a business – a brand – will. Commit to this year of building your authority, your brand, and a long time online business.
10. Have Fun! Least, but certainly not in importance, is to have fun with your online business. Uptight internet marketers who walk around with a scowl on their face, stressing out about their business, and just not being very friendly to anyone are just not fun to be around. Look at your internet marketing like a journey, or an adventure. I look at my online business as an Indiana Jones movie. I never know what will happen next, what treasure will be uncovered, or who I will meet. I have a lot of fun. Probably more than I should. Make it a commitment this year to have fun with your internet marketing adventure!
Internet marketing is more than just throwing up a few banner ads and buying some PPC ads. Much more. Commit to these ten things and you will a drastic improvement in all areas of your online business.
And remember… have fun!
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, it is also something that is done rather poorly.
The state of article marketing today seems to be taking a turn towards the rushed. A bunch of articles that are what I call “google rewrites”. This is where the topic is simply googled and the article is a rush rewrite of something that is already written. For example, if the topic is something like use of solar panels you would simply google the term “solar panels”, find a suitable article and then just rewrite it by running it through a some type of rewrite software. All that does is change some phrases and words around making it sound a little different.
However, the information is still the same.
What article marketing is missing today is new information. There isn’t any real research going into the article or any real “defining” moments in the articles today. It is like people get caught up in the keyword instead of the actual words.
Article Writing Is More Than Keywords
Most of the time when I write an article for a client, I am given a list of keywords. That is fine, but I do not rely on the keywords totally for the article. While the search engines like keywords, people do not. They want real information that will help them with a…
There is nothing worse than trying to find something, go to a web page where an article is and see that it is simply for getting higher rankings for that page. There is nothing of valueto be found, or worse yet, it is the same information you’ve already seen!
What Is An Article?
An article that is used for article marketing purposes is something that must add value to your webpage and/or to the person who is reading it.
Did you get that? Here is my definition of an article again.
An article for article marketing is a writing that adds value to your webpage and/or to the person who is reading it.
Do your articles do that?
Writing Your Next Article
Before you open up that word processor, text editor, or Wordpress interface, make sure that you follow a few things first.
1. Design it around what people need. Don’t just rely on keywords. Write for people.
2. You are not writing a book. People on the web do not have hours to sit and read your lengthy dissertation. They want to find the information they need quickly. Keep your article between 300 to 500 words in length.
3. Keep it on point. This is the hardest thing for me to do. I like to open with stories and a lot of background detail. But, if I am writing for article marketing purposes, I keep it on point.
4. Give new information. Please. Instead of stating the same obvious information. Give a new angle, a new opinion, or even go against the grain and do something entirely opposite.
5. Use correct writing principles. I’m not saying that you need to have a grammar degree. What I am saying is please have your article edited, or proofread by someone else. While you can go over it yourself, you will not pick out all of the mistakes.
6. Use Spell Check. Besides using correct writing in your article, run it through your spell checker. It might not catch all the misspellings, but it will catch most of them.
7. Have fun with it. It isn’t going to do any good if you dread writing your articles. Most of the time, this is because we put too much pressure on us to write great articles. They do not have to be great, but they should be decent enough to read. When you have fun with it, you will write better articles.
Article Marketing Is That Important
Content, no matter what anyone else tries to say, is still king. You need it. Article marketing is extremely important to your overall success that you should spend the majority of your time with it, or find someone else that can do your article marketing for you.
Remember what an article actually is, and then go write a few.
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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 articles posted without worrying about them being declined by some article directory. You can include as many links as you want while also being very personal. However, many people are intimidated by the thought of starting a blog. You don’t have to be if you remember one HUGE blogging tip.
Keep Posts Full Of White Space!
You have probably heard by now that people on the Internet skim the various posts and articles they find. The sad thing is that so many people do not adhere to this. They smash in 24 sentences in one paragraph and follow that up with a longer one. No one is going to read that.
The reason for this is pure psychology. If your blog posts are all mashed together your brain will say that it is too hard to read and want to move on. If there is enough white space, though, it will look easier to read.
Cut your paragraphs into smaller, two to three sentence, paragraphs. Doing this will help the reader move at a constant pace down your post. Once they have read it they will not feel like the life has been drained out them and click on a few of the links.
Have a blog? Thinking of blogging? Use shorter sentences with a lot of white space. That, my friends, is the best blogging tip ever.
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Niche marketing, when you are an affiliate marketer, is the way to create ongoing commissions.
When working with affiliate programs, one of the ways that many marketers reach such high levels of commissions is to focus on one particular niche – topic, product, theme, industry, etc. – and drive traffic that is interested in that one niche to their website. Populating your website with great content will keep these visitors coming back to see what else they can learn about this niche.
Niche Marketing And You
The trick to making niche marketing work for you is to choose something that you are passionate about. This is something that I had to learn the hard way. While it should be quite obvious, it wasn’t. I fell into the trap of creating sites for the “hot” products instead of building sites around those niches I was passionate about, knew a lot about, or wanted to know more about. It took some resources from Sitesell.com to change my way of thinking. In fact, it wasn’t until I read their flagship ebook – Make Your Site Sell – that I really figured things out about niche marketing.
Niche Marketing Example
One of the ways that I have found that makes learning easier is to find an example. This is especially true for niche marketing. Here is a quick video of a niche marketer and how they put it all together.
Niche Marketing Success Tips
Think niche marketing is something you want to do? Here are some quick success tips.
1. Choose a niche YOU are passionate about – This could be anything from apple growing to zebra care.
2. Create Your Content – This can be in the form of articles, ebooks, reports, videos, audios, pictures, whatever you can think of to grow your website.
3. Keep It Simple – Write your content in a personal style. Many of the most successful niche marketing sites are blogs where the author is speaking to their audience like they are all old friends. Works everytime!
4. Be Different – One of the major hallmarks of niche marketing is to provide something new to the audience.
5. Stay With It – I have known many aspiring affiliate marketers who have quite their affiliate marketing business just when it was about to explode. The waiting was too much. This is the main reason marketing a product, or creating content, on something that you love is so important. You will be able to stay with it much longer.
What do you think? Are you ready for niche marketing?
I have come to know a lot of great people all over the world while helping them with their advertising campaigns. Of course, I have also met some less than desirable people. During the last several years of online marketing I have come to see that there are three distinctly different types of internet marketers.
Marketing and Sports
Being a coach, fitness fanatic, and personal trainer I like to compare everything to sports. In fact, if you think about it, there isn’t much in life that you can not directly compare with sports and athletics. Every time I work on a new campaign I think about a large sports arena with the advertising materials as my team and the internet target as the audience, spectators, and opposing team.
In sports there are three different types of athletes. The same thing goes for internet marketing. In the several years I have immersed myself in the internet world, I have come to see that there are three different types of internet marketers. And they are not all good.
What I mean by that is this; there are those who are hurting themselves by being one, or even two, of these types of marketers. It sounds harsh, but if you are not willing to step up and change the way you approach your internet marketing – you will fail.
Three Types of Internet Marketer
Before you take a look at the different types of marketers take a minute to think about how you go about your own internet business, or presence. If you take a very honest look at your business, you will most likely be able to pinpoint which type of marketer you are. And, be able to make some changes for future success.
1. Quick Hitter – Only In It For The Money (Glory)!
You know the kind of athlete that moves from team to team looking for a better deal? Today with free agency, many players jump ship at the sign of a more lucrative contract. By the end of their career they have played for several different teams. However, it isn’t only in the pro ranks that this type of athlete is found. I played men’s softball for several years and was amazed at the number of people who would join different teams each year because they had the “good” players.
In essence, these types of athletes want the glory – the accolades of either earning more money or being on a “winning” team. Internet marketing has this same type of marketer. They are in it for the glory, and most definitely for the money.
This type of marketer jumps from opportunity to opportunity, or plasters the web with quickly put together two page websites based on the “hottest” keyword. This is the perfect formula for failure.
The Quick Hitter is so wrapped up in keyword research, tweaking Adwords ads, optimizing landing pages, and leaving a trail of mini sites in their wake that they cannot possible focus on building a real business. They are in it for the quick hit.
2. Weekend Warrior – Plays On The Weekends But Believes They Know It All!
I’m sure you know about this type of athlete. Every town is overrun with these types. I know mine is. These are the guys who play a few pick up games of basketball, softball, or even volleyball at the local recreation center and think they know it all about sports. As a coach, these people drive me absolutely nuts. In the internet marketing world, this type of marketer is one that has dabbled with a few MLM programs, sold a few Clickbank products, and now gives out their “expert” advice.
This type of marketer is a step above the Quick Hitter in that they are more consistent with what they are doing. However, it is mostly very inconsistent.
3. Lifestyle Athlete – Dedicated To Lifelong Success And Growth!
I have been active all my life. In fact, I’ve been called “obsessed with sports”. I wouldn’t quite call it an obsession. Rather, I would call it a dedication. I love playing, coaching, and helping athletes reach past their goals and continually establish new ones. That takes a lifetime of dedication and passion.
Internet marketing, or building any business really, requires the same type of passion, dedication, and lifelong “obsession”. Anything short of this and you are missing the mark as far as what you can potentially achieve.
The first time I ever set foot on a field as a coach was on a soccer field. I love soccer. I’ve played it since I was about 10 years old. Even though I had a lot of experience, I was scared. I had never coached anything before. Now, I was going to be leading a team of middle school boys. I’d like to say we had a stellar season. We only won one game. However, the learning experience was invaluable. Now, I have gone on to coach several sports.
When I started marketing on the internet, I had a simple online shopping mall with banners to hundreds of different sites I was affiliated with. It did alright, but I knew I had to continue learning, growing, and stretching myself. So, I started copywriting, advertising, and consulting. It wasn’t a one time thing – it has been a life of learning and reaching.
Internet Marketing Is A Lifestyle
This has been made even more crystal clear with the advent of social media. You can see, in real time, how the most successful people have become that way. They live what they do.
The most successful athletes – from the middle school soccer player to the professional, highly paid athlete – live their sport. They practice, live healthy, and put all their energy into being better. Not just once, or every few months, but continually.
Marketing on the internet demands that same type of lifelong dedication. It does not matter if you are an affiliate, a service provider, own a retail website, consultant, or info publisher. You must live it.
Which type of marketer are you? Where do you find yourself? Are you the Quick Hitter, Weekend Warrior, or the Lifestyle Athlete?
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Here’s a quick list of 60 online advertising tricks I’ve learned over the last 13 years of online marketing and setting up marketing campaigns. There is no particular order, just some of the do’s and don’ts I’ve come across along the way.
Do….
1. Be persistent in continuing to learn advertising and marketing.
2. Find a proven marketing coach to help you.
3. Learn, and practice simple copywriting as soon as you can.
4. Be familiar with different advertising tactics.
5. Use articles for website promotion.
6. Write and submit a consistent 3 to 5 articles a week.
7. Be an expert author at EzineArticles.com.
8. Submit articles to individual ezine publishers.
9. Get started with social media marketing.
10. Start a blog dealing with your niche.
11. Be a consistent participant in forums.
12. Comment, comment, comment on other blogs in your niche.
13. Provide quality content through weekly ezine or newsletter.
14. Send traffic to landing pages for capturing email and preselling visitors.
15. Be active on Twitter
16. Learn solid pay per click strategies.
17. Spend time optimizing webpages for higher search engine rankings.
18. Use an email signature in all your emails.
19. Seek out relevant sites and ask to exchange links.
20. Spread some ‘link love’ in your own articles and blog posts.
21. Give away a lot of free information in reports, ebooks, and email courses.
22. Keep landing pages up to date with relevant information and web copy.
23. Always test new copy, landing pages, headlines, and ads.
24. Participate in webinars, internet radio shows, and teleconferences.
25. Hold contests to increase web traffic.
26. Focus your advertising on one single action.
27. Go Viral in your advertising.
28. Have a plan and work diligently on it.
29. Use email ads in relevant ezines for targeted marketing.
30. Think of how you want to be thought of (brand) and build your online presence from there.
31. Experiment with buying targeted ad space on relevant websites.
32. List your website with all major search engines and directories.
33. Work hard in creating effective, stirring, and “pullable” headlines and titles.
34. Keep a ’swipe file’ of other advertising to learn from.
35. Create a social media landing page.
36. Do budget your advertising dollars to spread out over several areas.
37. Write guest posts on other blogs.
38. Form partnerships with other people within your niche.
39. Use social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Digg for further exposure of your site.
40. Have a multi-pronged attack in your advertising.
41. Use coupons and time limits as incentives.
42. Write and submit press releases on newsworthy events in your business, or affiliate company.
43. Use offline advertising methods (business cards, newspaper ads, etc.) to promote your website.
The Do Nots
44. Get discouraged if you don’t see overnight millions.
45. Write over-hyped sales copy for landing pages.
46. Get started with PPC advertising without really studying it first.
47. Just post your own links on Twitter.
48. Only participate in forums when you want to advertise your website.
49. Only publish your newsletter when you want to sell something.
50. Use pre-written, company supplied landing pages and ads.
51. Comment on blogs with “Great blog!” and leave it at that.
52. Spam publishers and site owners with your content on a daily basis.
53. Focus only on selling a product.
54. Limit yourself to just one advertising method.
55. Waste your money with safelists and paid “guaranteed” traffic sites.
56. Jump into social media marketing without a plan.
57. Use only free blog hosting for your blog.
58. Spam your ezine subscribers with daily issues or ads.
59. Try to do everything yourself.
60. Present an answer to your target audience’s problems.
The Biggest Marketing Do Of Them All
You can really get lost in the do’s and don’ts of advertising website and kind of lose the fun of it. (Yes, advertising and marketing is fun!)
You can also get so wrapped up in what you should and should not do that you kind of get frozen and don’t know where to go. But, I think I can lessen the anxiety a little bit with the number one marketing “do”.
Just do it.
You simply won’t achieve any type of traffic to your website if you don’t do something. Get started slowly and begin to build as you learn, work with someone, and see some results. But… you must do it!
What about you?
Do you have any tips for the “do” and “don’t” list? I’d love to hear them. Why not jotting it down in the comment section?
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Recently I wrote a quick post about what I believe internet marketing is. In that post I did a two things. First, I defined internet marketing as…
Internet advertising is being a loud voice to your market where you solve their problems with your products or services and build continuous, long lasting, and mutual relationships.
The next thing I did was lay out a quick formula that I think simplifies, and brings that definition, down to its most basic form.
Internet Marketing Formula = P + R = T
In that formula is the basic ingredients for your success with internet marketing. Doesn’t really matter if you’re into network marketing, affiliate marketing, adsense marketing, or marketing your own product or service. If you’re doing it online (or offline really) then these three variables are the main ingredients for your success formula.
But, what does it mean and how can you use it in your own marketing strategy? Just like any other type of algebraic equation, you plug in the numbers you know and solve for the one you don’t.
P = Problems
Or you could also substitute the words ‘need’ or ‘want’ here too. However you phrase it we’re talking about the things, solutions, services, goods, and/or information that people need or want. This is your contribution to their life.
You find out what people need, what they are struggling with, what they are buying now and you offer it. When I first started with copywriting and providing advertising services it was because of two things. First, I knew I wanted to help people. Second, I saw an overwhelming need for a real, personal, low-cost, and creative advertising service. I saw the problem and provided a solution.
Most advertising campaigns are built on trying to get the most traffic to a website so you can monetize that traffic in some way. When you build your advertising around a problem, or a want, or need, that traffic is already pre-sold into buying. Much more effective.
R = Relationship
Think of your favorite places to shop. Think about the people you buy things from. What makes that place, that person, so special?
It’s the relationship you have with them.
I’ve been teaching my clients this for a long time. This is something that I think a lot of affiliate marketers miss out on when they try to go for the quick buck. Long lasting relationships are a very powerful, and beneficial, tool in online marketing. Really for any type of marketing, online or off.
The recent boom in social media and the emphasis on building relationships people are finally realizing this for the first time.
When you think about it, building relationships with the people who visit your site is really one of the most important things you can do. Everything you use should be geared towards creating a foundation for future repeat business and referrals. Social media enables you to put more personality and build those relationships.
If you’re wondering how to build those relationships, here’s just a few different ways:
1. Weekly email newsletter
2. Videos
3. Blog posting and commenting
4. Connecting on Facebook and Twitter
5. Joint Venture partnerships
When you take the time to cultivate these relationships you are in effect stretching your advertising dollars. People want to do business with people they know, like, and respect. They will also refer that person to others.
A lot of my business comes from repeat clients and the people they refer. Relationships is a very powerful variable in the Internet Marketing Formula
T = Traffic
The end result of working with the first two variables is traffic. Every person online wants their share of the billions of people who actively surf the internet. This is the answer to our equation.
When you add both the problems (needs, wants) and the relationships you have built and are building the outcome is traffic.
You can’t have one and leave out the other. The formula isn’t P = T, or R = T. They are not equal or compatible.
P + R = T is the equation to have cemented into your mind as you begin planning, evolving, or implementing your advertising campaign.
Sample Internet Marketing Formula In Action
To get a perspective on what a marketing plan would look like using the P + R = T formula here’s a mock example.
Joe has started a new website focusing on movies. He wants to get traffic that will do a few things while at his site.
1. Sign up for the RSS feed.
2. Interact with comments.
3. Click on product links from Amazon.
4. Click on other related ads.
So, let’s work the formula.
Problem, Want, or Need
Joe sees an opportunity to provide real movie reviews, news from someone who really loves movies to an audience that isn’t as internet savvy and more wholesome. He sees that bigger movie sites are geared more towards a younger crowd.
Joe builds a site with this problem in mind and writes articles and posts directed at this type of audience. He is putting his personality into the posts in an effort to be real, and hopefully people will trust when looking for real movie news and reviews.
Relationship
Joe is thinking this site needs to be more like a family instead of random traffic from search engines. So, he is building relationships on StumbleUpon, Digg, Twitter, Facebook and in movie forums. He is also setting up a weekly email newsletter with special information on movies, dvd releases, and other information.
Another major component to his relationship building is going to be found in the comments on his blog and the comments he leaves on other blogs. He interacts with the people who leave comments on his blog so that they will want to come back. And by commenting on other blogs he is extending his reach to a bigger audience and engaging in the conversation going on there.
One more relationship builder that Joe is going to use is writing articles for article directories. These articles are going to be different from movie reviews and be like ‘10 Best Family Movies’, or ‘What Movies Should You Watch This Summer’. This will provide a jumping off point for people to get to know Joe. The perfect relationship builder.
Traffic
By concentrating on the problem (real, relevant movie reviews from someone who truly loves movies) and the relationships (through interaction and information) his traffic will begin to build over time and actually multiply at a good rate.
P + R = T
The Internet Marketing Formula isn’t some kind of gimmick or get rich quick scheme. It is a process by which you can “plug in the numbers” to help you create an effective internet marketing strategy.
I often tell my kids when they get stuck on an Algebra or Geometry question to do just that. I tell them to remember the formula they had learned to solve the problem and “plug in the numbers”. That’s what I’m telling you now. Use this formula and “plug in the numbers.”
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Affiliate marketing is a fantastic business model. One where you can easily get started with your own business online and build a great income.
However, that being said there are some downright myths to affiliate marketing that people actually buy into, base their business on, and then ultimately get frustrated and fail.
It’s easy to believe in some of the myths too. I think it is because we want to know that what we are about to embark on is going to both work and be easy. We hear all the time (the radio and tv commercials for making easy money online are really getting annoying) that it is as easy as 1 – skip 2 and 3 – jump right to the money. Unfortunately, real life affiliate marketing does involve work and a plan. Here’s four affiliate marketing myths that you should keep in the fantasy world.
Affiliate Marketing Myths
1. Affiliate marketing is as simple as copy and pasting banners. Like all myths, there are sometimes a very, very… very small grain of truthfulness to them. Copy and pasting codes for banners and sprinkling them all over a generic site (like a shopping mall website) was ok back in 1997 when affiliate marketing, and internet surfing, was gaining momentum. Today, not so much.
Today in affiliate marketing content is so very important. Videos, podcasts, and articles are how you pre-sell your website visitor into clicking on links, graphics, and banners.
2. Affiliate marketing leads to overnight success, big house, and expensive sports car. We see the pictures all them time, and even the professionally done “testimonial” videos, of people standing beside huge homes, expensive cars, boats, planes, and hot vacation spots. They then claim that in just a few weeks they were able to make enough money to afford all that and more.
Affiliate marketing is work. It takes time, dedication, desire, and commitment. It may take a few months to see any sort of income. It may even take a year to finally see sustainable income. If you’re looking for an overnight millionaire maker, look elsewhere.
3. Affiliate marketing is way over saturated to make any money with popular products. There was a time when I would have said you’re right. Given the way affiliate marketing was in the early days, certain products were just too over-marketed that only the first people to jump on board with it made any big money. Today, the rules of the game have changed and the playing field is wide open and very level.
As I said above, content is what will make a difference in your marketing. Not only content, but now that social media has taken over the internet, the potential for anyone to succeed now is wide open.
4. Affiliate marketing is not for me. I was talking to someone the other day who is getting started with affiliate marketing. Actually, he has been about three months into it and is pretty frustrated. He found my site and contacted me because we live so close. We met at Tim Horten’s and he began to explain everything he’s done up to now and that he was probably going to give it up. His words were, “Affiliate marketing isn’t for someone like me. I don’t know how to write, or the first thing about advertising.”
So sad that he’s not the only one who feels that way.
Affiliate marketing is for anyone and everyone. If you have online access, have desire to succeed, and are willing to learn; you can be an affiliate marketer.
Clear your mind of these affiliate marketing myths and get to work.
There. Now that we have debunked four of the myths about affiliate marketing, it is time for you to get to work. Dig in a little deeper if you need to. Set your sights on a fixed goal and don’t give up on it.
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