Category Archives: Internet Marketing

Expand Your Mind And Expand Your Wallet By Reading These…

5 Replies

In between working on the impending launch of my new product SecretBlogWeapon, I’ve taken some time out to re-engineer and optimize my business.

I’ve the fortune to be a member of a business-focused mastermind from whom I’ve got great advice, and have a number of established marketers on my skype list that I can consult regularly.

I’m not one to stand still, however, and have also enrolled the help of some of the greatest business minds to give me some advice in the next step of my internet marketing journey.

How To Get RichDonald Trump “How To Get Rich”

Property magnate and business owner Donald Trump has been a great help.

I haven’t had the chance to talk to “The Donald” on the phone yet, but I have been reading his bestseller “How To Get Rich“.

It’s not so much a “How to Get Rich” book, but it does give you insight into how Donald Trump runs his business, his business strategies, negotiation techniques, views on beautiful women and how some of his seminal projects, including his golf resorts and business operating procedures are decided.

For fans of the Apprentice, there’s great insight into how Mark Burnett and The Donald came together to work on the project.

And if you think you have a busy day, you also get a rundown of one of Donald’s typical days. It might leave you feeling like an underachiever, even if you are already a Type-A personality.

As soon as I make my way through this volume, I’m planning to check out the other 10 bestsellers he’s penned.

gene simmonsGene Simmons “Sex Money Kiss”

The “Demon” in rock band Kiss might seem a strange choice for a business biography. But look beneath the makeup and you’ll discover an astute businessman.

Going back to his childhood entrepreneurial pursuits, you’ll discover that Gene has had a hand in starting up profitable businesses since his early childhood days.

His prime motivation for becoming a rock star (getting lots of hot women and making lots of money) are a living example of how passion and income generation can be combined successfully.

My interest was piqued about Gene after reading rave reviews about his presentation at Dan Kennedy’s SuperConference a couple of months ago.

I’m going through Sex Money Kiss now and Gene candidly shares his philosophies (and suggested action plans) on making money, relationships with women and ideas for kickstarting your business.

–

Both these books have been helpful and given me new ideas to implement in my business not only because I have picked up new techniques and strategies to apply, but also because the books penned by Gene himself and with the assistance of a copyeditor in the case of Trump shift my thinking a couple of notches upwards in terms of what’s possible.

This “brain food” might just be the spark to set you off to a higher level in your business and personal life.

Check them out:
* How To Get Rich
* Sex Money Kiss

Do You Have Adequate Risk Management Policies In Your Internet Marketing Business?

1 Reply

thinkingOne of the takeaways from my friend, Tyler Project managing partner Leonard Lin’s experience of having his Facebook account suspended this past week, has been to manage your risk, especially in the area of technology risk management.

Failure to do so could mean a disruption in your business activities and in a worst case scenario, a stop in your income generation capability.

What’s Risk Management?

It’s a means to control the uncertainty and unknown elements in your business (typically referring to the negative elements). This could range from dealing with the latest Google slap, having a website get hacked into, being at the receiving end of unethical business practices by service providers or even partners.

Let’s be realistic, it’s not possible to totally eliminate risk, but you can take a leaf out of Wikipedia’s stub on Risk Management and look at the 4 options:

  • Risk Avoidance: actively avoiding all risk doesn’t do much for me, because the risk-reward maxim dictates that great reward is usually accompanied by greater risk. Go too far to avoid risk and you significantly reduce the potential returns from your business venture.
  • Risk Transfer: typically done through insurance. In the tech arena, even if insurance was available, it’s likely to be prohibitively expensive. If anything, being able to outwit, outlast and out-innovate your competition might be a stronger solution.
  • Risk Retention: Part of your market research process and due diligence should involve being ‘market aware’. Knowing your competitors and their web presence can help you better develop countermeasures and devise your business strategies accordingly. Operating in an information vacuum where you’re unaware of the business environment is a surefire recipe for disaster.
  • Risk Reduction: This is probably the best solution provided you reduce your risk in an intelligent manner. Call it having a “Plan B”. A comprehensive strategy where you’re continually being proactive in your market space is going to provide better results than being reactive (ie seeing what others do then following or improving on what they’re doing). Diversification, building up multiple streams of income works, provided you have generated critical mass in your business. (critical mass = reaching a comfortable income target). Diversification if you’re only generating a couple of hundred bucks in a niche is silly, you should instead focus on achieving critical mass.

Overall, being “market aware” is probably the best solution for dealing with risk in your business.

And yes, I have activiated “Plan B” on more than one occasion.

The Price of Internet Marketing Success…

3 Replies

It’s do-or-die time for one of my projects that I’ve been working on for a couple of months. How do I decide if a product is ready for launch?

If you’ve developed your own product or service, you’ll realize that the development process can go on forever, as you’re adding enhancements, updates, tweaks to it.

But if you take a page out of the Microsoft book, you should launch a product when you feel it’s ready and launch the service packs later.

Listening to the audio version of Donald Trump’s “How To Get Rich” helped echoed the lessons I’ve learned over the years, you can’t expect to please all your critics, not everyone is going to become a rabid fan. Just go for the ones that matter.

project planning

There’re a number of factors why budding marketers don’t see success from their projects, and in extreme cases never get round to launching their products or services.

Here’re a couple of principles to get things done:

  • Have a goal

You may not know what exactly you want when you start out, but you need a general direction. As you continue in your efforts, you Continue reading →

3 Princples on Writing Content That People Want To Read

4 Replies

Unless you’ve got a desire to be a loner hanging out on the internet, most bloggers, marketers and casual users want to build some sort of following.

A large part of your success will lie in building a loyal and large readership. And it’s not as hard as it might seem if you follow a couple of principles.

internet crowd

Principle 1: Pay It Forward

At the risk of sounding like a new age “Law of Attraction”/destiny manifestation proponent, I’m going to say that Law of Reciprocity determines the success of your written content.

If your content sites or affiliates sites are going beyond merely the hot/long-tail keywords, and strive to help people solve a burning issue or problem, you’re starting on the right track.

You’ve probably heard my constant refrain on the Friday Podcast about surfing for information before making a buying decision and landing on page after page of scraped manufacturer specs. If you can build the expert authority of a Tom’s Hardware or a Cnet, you’re moving in the right direction.

Principle 2: Positioning And Incremental Marketing

Here is the part that kills me…Why would you spend time writing great content and then fire an update on twitter or facebook or one of the other social networks and publish an update “New Blog Post: <URL>”

It’s like buying a set of new clothes and then have spinach sticking between your teeth – completely blows everything else.

An incremental marketing means Continue reading →

Kung Fu Panda’s Secret To Internet Marketing

6 Replies

It’s a covert message and if you didn’t know that DreamWorks Animation’s recent hit Kung Fu Panda which raked in more than $60 million in the box office, pushing out Adam Sandler vehicle You Don’t Miss with the Zohan, also contains the internet marketing million dollar formula, you should rush out and watch it now.

kung fu panda

Protagonist Po the Panda sets out to follow his passion for Kung Fu and inadvertently is chosen by the master tortoise Oogway to become the Dragon Warrior and master the secrets of the Dragon Scroll to become the ultimate KungFu master.

The analogy is that new internet marketers also set out to become masters themselves and are looking for their own “Dragon Scroll” to become the ultimate (fill in your preferred internet marketing specialty – affiliate marketing, search engine optimization, pay per click marketing, etc).

The same secret contained in the Dragon Scroll applies Continue reading →

Are You Managing Your Brand For Online Success?

1 Reply

I had a great time presenting a session on social marketing and web 2.0 technologies for Jeremy Palmer’s Black Ink Project today and it fired off a couple of thoughts on how Internet marketers can leverage their brand to enhance their business.

Especially if you’ve been traditionally focusing on PPC or Search Engine Optimization to generate leads and sales, these strategies can give you a couple more tools for your arsenal.

Social marketing is all about open communication and visibility. (transparency and honesty are key too).

If you don’t already have an online presence, look at how you want to position yourself.

At the heart of it, a Dell computer, an Apple iPod or an Asus Eee PC is just a bunch of circuit boards and electronic chips soldered together and encased in an aluminum or polycarbonate case. It’s marketing magic that imbues these objects with the emotional associations of style, ease-of-use, prestige, etc.

In his book, “All Marketers are Liars”, Seth Godin mentions how consumers are actually the ones lying to themselves. They imbue products and services with these larger-than-life characteristics and spending their income on “driving machines” and believe that a computer can help them “think different”.

If you’re an online marketer and you aren’t already picking up these tips to up your game, you could be missing out on the massive leverage these strategies provide.

Pickup artists like Neil Strauss AKA Style, Erik Von Markovik AKA Mystery talk about creating personas or social avatars. I don’t see this as very different from a brand that a company creates.

One question might be asked “So, how do I create my identity if I’m new to this?”

Answer: Create your identity based on what you want to be (your outcome) and strive towards it. An avatar is your desired outcome, you build it as a goal you want to achieve.

Having it consistent with your personal thoughts, values and attitudes will help you market via social media and web 2.0 with authenticity and brutal effectiveness. Projecting a picture of yourself as something you’re not is going to be a fruitless exercise down the road.

The pickup artists have put a practical application to Robert Cialdini’s concept of social proof – the idea of DHV’s or Demonstration of Higher Value. In Internet marketer speak, that’s becoming an authority site in your niche. (ok, I’m extending the concept further from its original position).

More importantly, social marketing still represents a pool of huge untapped potential – something like the Excalibur buried in a block of stone. The secret here is that anyone can be the “King Arthur” that pulls it out and unleashes its potential – it’s a matter of stepping up and taking action.

This clip with one of Mystery’s lieutenants, JDog, address the issue of creating avatars. Read between the lines and the same principles of focus, rather than “peacocking” will equally apply in your business too.