Donna Knight's Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews

Category: Internet marketing

  • Why You Should Fail As Fast As Possible

    Do you lack focus?

    It’s apparent from many internet marketing forum posts I’ve seen from people asking for assistance with their Internet business, that they are hyper-active and un-focused…

    Does that describe you?

    If it does, take solace in this fact: I was extremely un-focused too until I learned the secret of Selective Criteria Filtering TM.

    Here’s the problem.

    There are 100’s of ways of making money on the Internet and 100’s more ways of marketing your products and services on the Internet and 100’s of more product types you could be developing and 100’s of more things to do with your time.

    The good news is you have more options now than any time in the history of the world.

    The bad news is you have more options now than any time in the history of the world.

    More options = more thought required

    More options = more confusion

    More options = un-focused direction

    The solution to this is Selective Criteria Filtering TM. Selective Criteria Filtering TM is being single-minded in your pursuit of success… ignoring, or glancing only a few seconds at those things that could be an opportunity, but in most cases ignoring them all together and focusing exclusively on those one or two things that generate real cash profits in your bsuiness (like marketing).

    Selective Criteria Filtering TM is a fancy way of saying that, since you can’t be all things to all people, you have to Select the ONE THING that you know works and stick to it.

    But, before you can get to that point, you have to TRY different things to see what works and what doesn’t work.

    Yes, you can TRY a 100 different things and you SHOULD… if you know the ‘fast fail’ rule!

    Many marketers and entrepreneurs prefer the ‘fast fail’ method of success.

    The idea is that, the faster you fail the faster you know what works and what doesn’t work. Of course, it also means you have to take action to try things. Once you knwo they don’t work you get that much closer to success.

    The faster you fail, the faster you know what works and what doesn’t. Then you STICK to the one or 2 business models that generate the income and future potential income that will meet your goals.

    But don’t try things hapazardly… make your tests scientific- measure the results. Pick the one’s that work, throw out the rest.

    After you testing reveals a winner, then use Selective Criteria Filtering TM to determine what you should pursue, according to the business model you’re operating in, and which one’s to avoid, even if they look attractive on the surface.

  • MASTER Online Marketer’s Formula

    MASTER Online Marketer’s Formula

    One of the most frequently asked questions in internet marketing forums is “how can I start making money online?”

    The answer to this is question is very simple. Here is the formula that ALL online marketer’s use to make BIG MONEY online.

    Here’s the MASTER Online Marketer’s Formula (for any market or niche):

    Making money online = a list + sales copy + products + timing

    Each one of these factors is CRITICAL to success.

    Another thing to think about is:

    “What is your marketing PRIORITY?”

    Let me start by saying that I can’t believe the amount of junk sales pitches I see in my email box everyday… you get them, I get them, everyone gets them.

    You’re probably very CONFUSED about the pitches you receive- they all LOOK so good!

    Each one promises to make you RICH… just buy their product or follow their plan and you will be!

    Gheesh… are you still falling for that?

    Let me be very blunt:

    Forget about making a $million dollars… start by making a few hundred each week, then a few hundred each day… pretty soon you’ll look at your bank account and scratch your head saying,

    “Where did all that money come from?”

    To be in that happy situation you have to concentrate on your #1 job as an online marketer:

    1) Building your list,

    2) Write effective sales copy,

    3) Find targeted offers for your subscribers and

    4) Get the ‘timing’ right…

    If you’re not making any money online right now this is the reason… you don’t understand or know how to work the “MASTER Online Marketer’s Formula“.

    #1: You need a list.

    The best ways to build a solid list is to participate in discussion forums, create mini-ebooks to give away and to sell inexpensive items related to your niche on eBay, use PPC (cheaply), and use eBay as a ‘lead generator’ by selling inexpensive products and asking your buyers to opt-in to your list (most will if your information is good)…

    Ok… what else do you need?

    #2: You have to know how to write.

    I’m sorry, but that is the truth.

    If you can’t put two sentences together that promote a product or service that GETS a RESPONSE you will have a very difficult time making money- it can be done, but it will be much harder for you to be very successful.

    Writing is not difficult… writing so that you are communicating clearly IS difficult.

    And the best copy I have ever seen is simple and convincing.

    It’s not hard, but you have to think clearly about what you want to say BEFORE putting it in writing.

    CLARITY and SIMPLICITY are the keys.

    #3: Finding Targeted Offers

    This comes AFTER you have provide good, solid content to your subscribers to prove that you know what you are talking about.

    Finding targeted offers is not that hard. You need to search for them online. You need to think about what it is your subscribers would want to learn or know or what tools would be helpful to them. When you find something that you think would interest them join the products’ affiliate program (if there is one) and ‘announce’ it to your subscribers.

    #4: Timing.

    The best time to send offers to your list is between 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM US Eastern Time. Don’t ask me why, it just is.

    There’s much more to ‘timing’ but we’ll save that for another time but, just realize…

    ….There are all kinds of things that prevent your offer from being opened and read, none of which have anything to do with you.

    You just have to know ahead of time that no matter how great your offer is, some people will just not be interested, even if they do open your email.

    Final words of advice:

    If you think making money online is complicated you’re wrong- it’s simple.

    I did NOT say “easy”, I said “simple’.

    It will take WORK… if you want to make money without work, then play the lottery.

    If you want to make money and don’t mind a little effort and some thinking, then stick around, you’ll find plenty of ideas here on how to boost your income.

  • How rich will you be?

    This is a cool little tool that is more for fun than anything else. Check it out!


    18,249,680
    How much money will you be worth?

  • Coaching with Other People’s Money – Not Exactly

    If you get a call or see an ad from a famous internet marketer that offers you coaching that will be paid for by Other People’s Money (OPM), BEWARE!

    I’m going to tell you about a tactic that I’ve seen a few times now that you should be aware of, so that you can read between the lines. 

    I’m not trying to point fingers at specific marketers because I’ve seen this tactic used by a few. How it works is that they tell you they can offer you coaching that is guaranteed to make you a success and you won’t have to pay a cent of your own money. You will use other people’s money.

    They tell you their reason for doing this is because they want to use you as a success story. If you have heard of them, you may have already seen some of their success stories.

    Be very wary of success stories. I’ve been around the block on the internet a few years, and I’ve seen some success stories from people who were already wealthy without ever using said guru’s internet marketing system.

    While some might say there’s nothing wrong with that since they may very well have earned more money using this new-fangled marketing system, I take issue with it. One of the purposes of testimonials is to make you feel that an average Josephina like you  too can benefit from this “new” internet marketing technique. The fact that it helped a rich guy get richer just doesn’t give me much confidence in the program. But maybe that’s just me.

    Now, it is easy to believe the claims made by this coaching program, because it was created by a famous internet marketer who is, without question, rich.

    When they say that the coaching program will be paid for with Other People’s Money (OPM), they most certainly don’t mean they’ll be dipping into their own riches to help a poor soul like you. What they are referring to is you using YOUR credit cards to pay for their several thousand dollar coaching program.

    I can understand why they refer to this as “other people’s money”, since the credit card company is initially paying for your purchase. However, this is money you have to pay back, and credit cards generally give you money at interest rates higher than a bank loan.

    Now that you know how closely tied Other People’s Money is to your own, you might want to think twice about using it for such a large investment.

    To your success on the ‘net,

    Donna Knight

  • The No-Work, Money-Making Website

    by Willie Crawford
    May 26, 2005
    The No-Work, Money-Making WebsiteCopyright 2005 by Willie Crawford
    While growing up on the farm in North Carolina, I loved gardening. There was something magical about planting a dollar’s worth of seeds, watching them germinate, and then feeding the family for a entire season with my efforts.The only part I didn’t enjoy was the weeding andcultivating. That was the WORK! So I was thrilledwhen I discovered “The Ruth Stout No Work Garden Book.” That book taught me how to get all of those great vegetables with no weeding, very little cultivating, and little watering. It really did teach you how to gardenwith literally no work.Twenty year later, I discovered just as fertile agarden on the Internet. With practically no investment other than my time, I could put up awebsite, nurture it, build traffic to it, and in time, harvest lots of sales from it.

    Just like with the vegetable garden, there was a lot of maintenance required if you wanted a good harvest.The site needed to be constantly updated so thatthe search engines “learned” that they should visitthis “fresh” site often. The site needed to have lots of keyword rich webpages so that it would rank high for relevantkeywords, and attract organic search engine traffic.Since I was taught that “content is king” that meantthe more content-rich, tightly-focused webpages youhad, the better. The content-rich pages meant youcould make sales, get new subscribers, and even earnpay-per-click revenue from programs such as GoogleAdSense.The only problem with the above model is… it’s a lot of WORK.Then I discovered, “The No-work, Money-making Website.It wasn’t completely no work, but it was probably1/10th the work that I had been doing. The no-work website encompasses building a content-rich website using automated tools.

    These tools allow you to gather relevant content (articles, RSS feeds, etc.) from all over the Internet and then instantly generate hundreds… even thousands of content rich webpages in minutes. The no-work website encompasses using other toolsto automatically update your site, so that each timethe search engine spiders visit, they notice newcontent. Noticing new content on each visit, thesearch engine spiders make a note to visit moreoften. Now here’s where this gets really powerful…As these search engine spiders visit more often,they don’t just crawl your current no-work, money-making site.

    They also follow links to other sitesyou want to get indexed. So now you can put up yourno-work site, teach the search engines to come backoften, and then go on to build other sites knowingthat getting them indexed is as simple as linking to them from your old sites. It really is that easy :-)By now you’re probably asking what are some of thesemagic tools I use to build these amazing, no-work sites that literally takes on a life of their own. Here’s are just a few of the tools I personally use:1) Blogs. Blogs hosted on Blogger.com get noticedvery quickly by Google because Google owns Blogger.comBy pinging blog directories (and Yahoo using your “My Yahoo” page) lots of other sites take notice ofyour blog.

    They visit your blog and follow links toother target sites.2) I’m a charter member of Content Desk. ContentDesk has a tool that allows me to query databasescontaining tens of thousands of articles (based upon keywords). I can automatically sort the list of articles that is returned based upon keyword density,or a number of other criteria. Then, I can havethe software itself create webpages for me usinga template I’ve designed using the template toolbuilt right into Content Desk.Content Desk is probably my favorite tool because I can, quite literally, add hundreds of article pages to my sites in minutes. My templates also include ads fora “pet” product and/or Google AdSense.

    I can add content-rich, relevant, very nice-looking pages to my sites in minute, and then move on to the next project, knowing that these pages WILL make me money.Content Desk limited its charter membership to atotal of only 400 members, and that quickly sold out.However, since it’s a monthly membership, not allmembers renew and there are probably some openings.To check on openings, simply visit:http://WillieCrawford.com/content-desk.htmlAfter arriving at the site, click on the “CharterMembership” link in the upper left menu bar. Thiswill tell you if there are any current openings.3) RSS Feeds. By incorporating RSS feeds into yourwebpages, you can set them up so that the content isconstantly updated. This gives your visitors somethingfresh to read each time they visit. This gives thesearch engines fresh content each time that they visit…

    and trains them to visit often.Content Desk incorporates a feature that works verysimilar to regular RSS feeds EXCEPT that it doesn’tsend your website traffic away. With a normal RSSfeed, the content automatically added to your sitecontains links inviting your visitors to click away.It allows you to automatically update your pages, butit also siphons off traffic. Content Desk does this ina way that automatically updates your site withoutsending your visitors away.4) Traffic On Steroids. This is another systemfor automatically updating/changing content on yoursite. Traffic On Steroids actually takes a coredatabase of articles/content that you set up and then rotates it in your target webpages.

    The neteffect is that each time a visitor (or searchengine) visits a page, the page is different. This isvery effective at training the search engines tocome back often… and increasing your pages’ ranking.Incorporate Google AdSense into these pages andyou have another hands-off money magnet.You can also incorporate a product data-feed intoyour page using Secret Money Generator and have pages that are constantly updates AND have a catalog of products built in that all pay you anaffiliate commission. Secret Money Generator is at: http://WillieCrawford.com/money-secret.htmlYou can check out Traffic On Steroids at http://WillieCrawford.com/traffic-on-steroids.htmlI’ve just shared with you a few of the dozens oftools I use to create nearly-hands-off websites. Ido still look at some of them from time to time tosee if I can make them perform better.

    However, youcould LITERALLY never touch many of your sitescreated with these tools for years… and you’d still have a nice revenue stream from them. It’s all about working smarter, not harder. It’s allabout using technology to leverage your time.
    ———————————————–
    Willie Crawford is a corporate president, published author,seminar speaker and host, tele-seminar speaker and host,retired military officer, karate black belt, master networkmarketing trainer, and lifetime student of marketing. Heshows people how to actually generate substantial incomeon-line using very simple, easily implemented systems.

    Anexample of such a system that you can study and utilizeis at: http://WillieCrawford.com/TheSystem.html.

  • How To Find The Best Low Cost Web Host Without Skimping on Features

    By Donna Knight

    With an online business, your website is perceived as a reflection of your business reliability and credibility. A poorly designed website makes your business appear unprofessional. Likewise choosing an unreliable host, makes your website and your business appear unreliable, as well.

    For that reason, the success of your business is directly tired to your choice of web host. In case you don’t know, a web host is a computer that stores your website. When an internet user types in your website address or URL into their web browser, their computer connects to the web host which then points them to the pages that make up your website.

    As a professional website builder who has built over 200 websites over the past three years, I could tell you some hosting horror stories, such as mysteriously broken or disappearing websites. But I would rather tell you how to avoid such disaster. Once you read the following tips you’ll be able to make more informed decisions about choosing an affordable web site host, and avoid mistakes myself and my customers made when first starting out.

    Here is a list of what to consider in choosing a reliable cheap web host with the best features:

    1. Know the bandwidth limits. Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data that can be transferred over a network. Bandwidth limits can be measured daily or monthly. If bandwidth limits are too low, you will have to move your website if you get a lot of traffic.

    Unlimited bandwidth falls under the category of too good to be true. There is always a limit, whether they tell you what it is or not. When comparing prices, try to get the most bang for your buck, but don’t assume unlimited bandwidth is the best value. Whether it is will depend on other factors listed here.

    Bandwidth is usually specified in GB (A GB or gigabyte is 1 million megabytes. A megabyte is 1 million bytes. Get it?).

    2. 30-day Money back guarantee. Most web hosts do not give a money-back guarantee, but you should give extra points to a website which does offer this. It gives you a chance to try out the speed and reliability of the service without risking your money.

    3. Unix or Windows Hosting. Unix is an operating system just like Windows, which is the operating system on your personal computer (unless you’re using a mac). Which type of host is right for you depends on what type of website you have. If your website is a bunch of HTML pages, either one will work. If your website has complicated functions, or has different types of pages or uses a database, ask your web designer which type of hosting your website requires. If your website is loaded onto the wrong type of host, it will not work.

    4. Allowable disk space. Most web hosts offer multiple hosting accounts with increasing amounts of disk space. More disk space is usually more expensive. You want to give more weight to host services that give more disk space for the money when doing comparisons. Most websites don’t use more than 100 MB (MB is megabytes). If it is a static website, such as a sales page, it might even take up less than 1 MB.

    If you see a host offering unlimited disk space, you should know this is a marketing ploy. There is always a limit, so keep this in mind when you see this.

    5. Compatibility. If your site is simply a few HTML pages, this is not an issue. It will work with any host. If you have a website created by a designer or programmer, you will need to check with them to find out what features your web hosts must have before your buy your hosting account.

    6. Technical support availability. If you want to maximize your visitors and sales, your website needs to be available 24/7. Likewise you need a host that offers support around the clock. Most web hosts do not offer phone support. Those who do are usually more expensive. Give extra points to those who do. Most support is web-based and response times can vary.

    7. Reliability of the hosting company. Choosing a web host is like choosing a partner. You want to give preference to a host that has been around a while. A new host could disappear just as quickly as it appeared, taking your website along with them. You don’t necessarily need to choose a major company, such as Dell, because their hosting will almost certainly be more expensive. Smaller web hosting companies can be just as reliable as larger ones for the same reason that smaller companies sometimes give better service than larger ones.

    8. Reliability of hosting service. Many hosts list their reliability in terms of uptime, such as 99.7% uptime. Some hosts will given give you free hosting time if they fail to meet their uptime. There is no such thing as 100% uptime. Web host servers are more reliable than personal computers but no computer is perfect. Generally, anything over 99% is good.

    Remember that the cheapest host is not necessarily the best. Consider all the factors I’ve listed above, then decide. The best choice will give you the most features for your money. Most importantly, reliability is one area you should never ever skimp on just to save a few bucks. If you do, it could end up costing you more money then you saved. It possible to find a good low cost host as long as you keep reliability in mind.

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    Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
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    Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact. For product reviews, you may substitute your affiliate referral link for the product URL.
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  • How To Profit From RSS

    By Donna Knight

    Would you believe an 18 year old girl earned $4000 for the month of March. That may sound like hype for some business opportunity, but in fact, it’s a true story. Would you like to know her secret? Of course you would. I’ll tell you in two words.

    Google AdSense.

    That’s right. She made four thousand smackeroos by slapping some AdSense code on a site that got lots of visitors. Okay, there’s a little more to it than that. First she chose a subject with ravenous fans, Final Fantasy. She was also fortunate enough to be one of the few fans of the series who had the talent to make a beautiful online shrine for people who shared her passion. Most importantly, she took advantage of a time where you can build a site that gets enough visitors so that Google AdSense can be the key to untold riches.

    Fortunately for you, we’re still living in a time where there are plenty more riches to be reaped from the AdSense goldmine. If you want to know more about what you need to do to position yourself to get some of that AdSense gold, read on.

    Increasing website traffic is always the first priority for internet marketers. More visitors means greater chances for a sale. Sales is a numbers game. With AdSense, more visitors means more clicks which means more money. Does that make sense?

    AdSense, however, won’t do you any good if you have no traffic. The rest of this article will focus on how to boost your traffic. Read on. One way to increase your website traffic is through maximizing search engine positioning. Being on the first page of the search engine results will do wonders to increase your chances of getting scores of unique website visitors.

    The million-dollar question is how do you get your website on that first page of the search engine results page (also called the SERP). Part of the solution is to choose the right keywords to use in your site. These keywords would be the words that searchers type into the search engine box, which then show a list of related websites. The better your keyword choices, the greater your chance of getting a higher search engine position. However, choosing the right keywords is only the first step in search engine optimization.

    Here’s a little known secret the gurus don’t want you to know: Search engine spiders are the little programs which actually grab information from your site which will be integrated into the search engines. These spiders love websites with constantly changing content. The more you update your site, the more the spiders will come back to visit your site and spider it.

    The problem is that manually updating your site constantly would be so tedious that even if you thought you really could make a lot of money as a result of doing it, you would eventually lose your motivation. Your goal is an internet marketer is always to save time by automating as many of your tasks as possible.

    That’s where RSS enters the picture. The definition of RSS is Really Simple Syndication. It is a standard for publishing constant updates to a website. RSS technology lets web publishers send out news and updates, called feeds, which visitors can quickly and conveniently read with a program called an RSS reader. RSS now has more uses than it ever was intended for.

    1. RSS allows you to easily and quickly send messages to your target audience, whether they are customers or your mailing list subscribers. Do you have a new promotion to send out an ad for? Do you have new information for your readers to ponder? Have you added new products to your product line that you want your past buyers to consider? Syndicate it! Gone are the days when your only choice was to wait until new information arrived in the mail. RSS feeds are delivered immediately as soon as the user comes online.

    2. The true power of RSS is best realized with a blog. Blogs were originally created to serve as online journals, but leave it to smart internet marketers to find more uses, most importantly how to monetize them.

      3. Blogs are much easier to update than a website, therefore making it very easy to add new content every day. It’s all automated. Write, publish, and voila!, new content! The best part is that your blog updates can also be syndicated as RSS feeds. The benefit are twofold. 1) It saves time and 2) it makes search engine spiders love your constantly updated site as well as your other sites where RSS feeds originate.

    3. RSS is a free web promotion method, so you don’t need any expensive programs to take advantage of it. Blogs are free as well. RSS is still a new technology which means if you start taking advantage now you will be head and shoulders above any competition.

    RSS will expose more people to your site and make search engine spiders frequent visitors to your site. As a result, you will get more visitors. More visitors means more potential sales. The girl with the Final Fantasy site is proof of that. To boost your online present, taking advantage of RSS is a must.

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    Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
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    Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free eBooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact. For product reviews, you may substitute your affiliate referral link for the product URL.
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  • Are You Down with the Clowns?

    Intro by Donna Knight
    This is an article from controversial internet marketer Jo Han Mok. His copywriting style is a lot like Gary Halbert’s. It’s raw, tough-talking and sometimes funny. If you’ve been in internet marketing circles long enough, you’ll recognize the clowns he’s talking about. Don’t let his somewhat offensive manner of speaking keep you from taking his main message to heart though. He’s right. The most successful people online (and off) really do exhibit the behavior he mentions. The clowns may seem successful for a little while then they suddenly disappear, never to be heard from again. For more information, read on:

    >From the desk of Jo Han Mok
    9/13/2005
    MEMO: Sales Avalanche

    Hi Donna,

    I think you’ll find today’s email rather interesting.

    You see…

    I often get lots of subscribers asking me how it is
    possible for me to consistently get such startling
    reponse rates.

    This is usually the case after they have done some JV
    with a supposed big name marketer claiming to have a
    billion people on his opt in list, and the clown pulls
    in only 3 sales.

    SO the big question is, how do you not fall into the
    trap of becoming a ‘clown’ like our friend above?

    Here are a few pointers.

    Power Pointer #1: It’s NOT the size

    Despite what women say, size has nothing to do with
    it. I don’t care how many people you have on your
    list. I rather have a list of a 1000 people who have
    spent at least $97 than a list of 3 billion people who
    have not spent a dime with me.

    Power Pointer #2: Give MORE value

    Majority of Internet Marketers fall into this
    category. Every email is a pitch. Buy this, then buy
    that. Let me promote anything under the sun. Doesn’t
    matter if it’s garbage, as long as I get my
    commissions. It’s easy to tell when a marketer is
    desperate. Usually you’ll get a flurry of emails that
    will telegraph something like “Hey you know I sent you
    an email yesterday to buy widget X. Guess what? Here’s
    widget Y and it’s better than Widget X”

    It’s everything or anything. Some thrashy fire sale,
    some crap software, the newest niche formula, blah
    blah.

    Leave this to the amateurs. Probably aside from
    sending emails to their list, they have no other means
    of making dough online.

    Don’t, for the love of mother mary fall into this
    trap.

    I’ve been there and done that when I started out. The
    money is crap.

    If you wanna squeeze MAXIMUM profits from your list,
    you gotta give. Give more, and learn to ‘hold out’
    from all that pitching.

    If you’re skeptical try it. Give nothing but your very
    best content for 4 weeks straight and throw in a pitch
    on the 5th, see what happens.

    Most probbaly, people will already be BEGGING you to
    sell them something in the 3rd week.

    Power Pointer #3: Focus

    If you want to make the most number of sales you
    possibly can, do it the PRO way and focus.

    Concentrate on ONE product, and have a CONGRUENT
    message.

    Marketing bozos on the other hand will have a ‘buffet
    spread’ of 72 hour specials alongside with an exlusive
    ‘buy my ebook and you get my mother as well’ type of
    offer.

    When people are confused, they DOn’T buy.

    If you get a poor response intially, try to ‘tweak’
    your offer and your marketing mechanisms and see what
    happens.

    Very often, it could be due to one or more variables
    that you can ‘fix’. For instance, it could be the
    ‘look’ of the piece, the ‘qualifiers’ in the copy, the
    price point yada yada. It could be anything, but
    unless you test and monitor your results, you wouldn’t
    know.

    And last but not least, don’t imitate.

    DARE to be different.

    If you have your own unique spin on things, do it.

    Screw those who don’t like you, and go with your
    heart.

    You can stand your ground and you don’t need anyone
    else’s permission.

    I’ll give you an example.

    Most ‘bozo’ marketers online are followers.

    They see a ‘fire sale’, they come up with a ‘fire
    sale’.

    They see a ‘source code blowout’, they come up with a
    ‘blowout’.

    They see a ‘Private lable package’, they come up with
    a ‘Private Label Package’.

    They see a ‘Content Publishing system’, they come up
    with a ‘Content Publishing System’.

    Yet if you look at them and ask yourself what they
    ‘REALLY’ do, there’s only one answer. They’re anything
    and everything that makes money.

    That’s cool, but where’s your business longevity?

    Where’s your ‘identity’?

    Where’s your ‘brand’?

    How are people EVER gonna relate to you?

    I hope all this is making sense to you.

    It’s a long email laced with sarcasm and some dark
    humor but I’ve been keeping this stuff to myself for
    far too long.

    Time for you to know, and if you dig what I had to
    say, do every marketer on this planet a favor and
    forward it to any other marketers you know.

    The ‘little guy’ CAN succeed!

    Jo Han Mok
    Midas Touch Marketing

    P.s. Don’t take my word for it though. Just look
    through the emails you get in your inbox and see
    if what I said is true.

    P.P.S. You have full permission to reprint this
    article as long as you credit it to me ok? : – )

  • How To Market Your Offline Business Online

    By Donna Knight

    The disadvantage of an offline business compared to an online business is the limited marketplace. There are multiple factors that need to be perfect to guarantee your business success. One factor is the limited geographic area that will be the potential audience for your goods or services. Another factor is the limited number of places to advertise. In addition, to give your products or service the exposure they need usually requires a sizeable financial investment.

    In the past decade, all this has changed. On the internet, the whole world can be your market. Marketing and promotion can be done at the speed of electrons at little or no cost. All this has changed with the advent of the Internet. When you do pay to advertise, your advertising dollars can stretch a lot further with online marketing

    It’s no secret that the Internet has become a breeding place for unknown millionaires. These are the people who have established new online businesses that became wildly successful empires. Despite their success, you won’t see them on T.V., doing the rounds on The Tonight Show or David Letterman. These entrepreneurs are perfectly happy to keep their success to themselves while enjoying a life of abundance beyond their wildest dreams.

    If you have an offline business, right now you may be thinking, “that’s good for them but how will it benefit me?” The good news is that the internet can provide the same benefits for offline businesses. In fact, if you’re smart, you’ll position yourself on the internet now before your competition does and leaves you eating their dust.

    Here are some things you need to know to start marketing your offline business online:
    1. You need a website. A website will be like an online version of your shop where you can display your products or announce your services. You can also choose to perform transactions or make sales on your website. You can accept orders and pre-orders by using forms and online payment processors.

    2. You need a secure payment method to accept payments online. 63% of consumers worldwide are still hesitant to use their credit card or checks online. Your payment pages can be secure by using Secure Sockets Layers (SSL), which protects data transmissions over the web by encrypting or encoding the data so that it can’t be read if intercepted by a hacker.

    3. You also need to learn how to drive traffic to your site. This is not that difficult though. Traffic refers to the number of people who visit your website. The more people who see your site, the more exposure your products or services receive. Therefore, making more sales may require getting more people to come to your site. Making sales is always a numbers game, both online and offline. Here are some proven ways to increase traffic to your site:

    A. Optimize your site for the search engines. A good 80% of traffic comes from search engines queries. If your website gets a high position in the search engine results, you will get more visitors. Search engine optimization tactics include keyword research and integration, content creation, and submission of your site to as many high-traffic search engines as possible.

    B. Exchange links with other similar but non-competing sites, but also try to get one-way links to your site. One-way links are links where they link to you, but you don’t link back. Search engines frown on obviously intentional reciprocal linking. If you get links from completely unrelated sites, these may be poor quality links.

    C. Advertise on other sites by using banners.

    D. Try pay-per-click advertising, such as Overture or Google AdWords.

    4. You also have to establish a way to keep past visitors. This can be done using a good autoresponder service or by regularly sending out an Ezine. Ezines are electronic newsletters that provide valuable information for your subscribers. By offering them something worth their time, you will gain trust, which could result in future sales.

    5. Consider viral marketing, which is the online equivalent of word of mouth advertising. Here’s how it works: distribute a useful and desirable product for free. This is usually in the form of an eBook or a special report on a subject of interest and importance to your target market. Add links to your product or website to this Ebook. Allow your readers to freely distribute it to their friends and family by giving them giveaway rights. An advanced technique is to give them resale rights to this viral product, allowing them to keep 100% of the profits for any sales. This would guarantee an exponential spread of the viral product, resulting in a similar exponential growth of your site’s traffic.

    These days putting your offline business online is so cheap, that you have nothing to lose by trying it. You don’t need a major investment, and the risks are usually negligible. The key is to start now, and you will find that there are endless possibilities for your business online.
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    Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
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    Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact.

  • Reducing to the Ridiculous

    By Armand Morin

    As I was getting ready to go to bed the other night, I was watching o­ne of those late night infomercials.

    It was another o­ne of those weight loss/exercise programs that claimed it has been a secret to the stars for 50 years.

    As I was watching, lightning struck me!
    They stated the same thing every other ad states except in a different way.

    Here is what they said:

    “After 20 times you will notice a difference and after 30 times your friends will notice a difference.”

    Now, look at what they really said.

    You are suppose to use the system 3 times a week for 10 weeks.

    3 times a week for 10 weeks sounds like a lot to me but doing it o­nly 30 times for noticeable difference sounds pretty simple. Even I can do that!

    All of a sudden I started thinking of making a countdown board with 30 and then reducing that down by o­ne each time I worked out. I thought, this is awesome.

    I didn’t buy the product but it did make me think.

    I started thinking of the power their simple explanation really had and how I can apply that to my business.

    I was always taught in sales, you must reduce the price to such a small amount that it would be ridiculous for a prospect not to buy.

    So I started thinking. If a person bought my eCover software for example and used it 10 times, that means they just reduced their effective cost from $97 for a cover to just $9.70. If they used it 100 times though their cost would o­nly be $.97 for each cover they created.

    Pretty neat huh? I just told my prospects that the price is not $97 it is o­nly $.97 per cover! That certainly sounds a lot better and more affordable! Plus it makes sense.

    How can you apply this to your business?

    Ask yourself, how much can a person save each time they use my product?

    or What does it really cost to use my product?

    How much time and energy can my product save my customers?

    How much more money would my customers have spent if they did not have my product.

    Your product doesn’t have to be software, information products work the same way. Diet products are great products for this formula to work with.

    Lose weight for o­nly $.34 a pound!

    Think about your product and reduce it to the ridiculous!

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    About Armand Morin

    Armand Morin has been o­nline since 1996 and has sold millions of dollars o­n and offline. His latest products cater specifically to the ebook industry. Two of his more well known products are www.ebookgenerator.com and www.ecovergenerator.com the first ecover software.