The Open Source Marketer

Should you pay to attend training events? At first glance you might not think the costs are worth the expense but then you might not be considering the unadvertised advantages of the event either. In this article we’ll take a look at why you may want to consider the power of a good idea, ways to make your money back on the deal, and what after hours gatherings can do for your network of contacts. These factors will tell you if an event is “worth it” or not.

Paying for training is a topic I used to consider pretty seriously because, conferences, seminar, training events, boot camps, and two day courses can all cost money you never seem to have. That’s not even considering the plane tickets, hotel, food, and rental car. Everything can add up pretty quickly and if your not careful an initial look at the figures can potentially scare you off of the idea all together. So to help relieve those fears, let’s take a look at a few key concepts that can help you decide on the value of an event. Read the rest of this entry »

If you are looking to enter the field of Internet Marketing you must know one thing up front. Internet Marketing is not about getting rich quick.

Some people would like to make it about get rich quick schemes but the truth is a lot of work is involved.

If there is anything that has ruined a generation of good people is the idea of that there is a get rich quick answer.

The problem is that most get rich quick schemes don’t work for everyone. I qualify this by saying, not everyone because some people have managed to make get-rich-quick schemes work for them. Some people are able to make lots of money in a short period of time. It might be their situation, it might be timing, it might be their own personality, but these factors don’t always add up for everyone. Read the rest of this entry »

Summary: Learn why you should test, test, test everything in Internet Marketing to find out what works.

There are a ton of “proven techniques” that are promoted in the Internet Marketing arena. But, no matter what you might read or who you might listen to one thing is certain. Testing your marketing methods is a fundamental activity that must be done on a regular basis.

Here’s the deal. We can’t assume that what works for one group of prospects will work for another group. We can’t assume that because it has been “proven” that it will work for us. We can’t assume that what has worked for us in the past will work for us in the future.

I know what you are thinking, “If I can’t depend on these things, then what can I do”. Well, here it is in three simple words; test, test, test.

Testing of your marketing methods should simply be a part of the way we do business. We should want to know if option A produces more results than option B. We should want to know if we are getting traffic from those paid clicks or if we are just paying out money for no reason. We should have some form of insight into what is going on in our marketing efforts and how we can improve their results. We should, test everything.

So how do we do this testing? One simple method is split testing. Let’ take newsletter sign up forms as an example. Split testing a sign up form is a simple way to know if one form gets better results than another form. Let’s say your two forms are exactly alike in all respects, except one form is placed within the home page of your site and the other form is included in a popup on that same page. Over a period of time, say a week or even a month, you see that more people sign up through the pop up form than through the inline form on the page. Now you know that the pop up form is the way to go.

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Summary: Learn why you should offer an ethical bribe to get people to take action.

The incentive technique you are about to read about is as common these days as Starbucks stores, but the principle is applicable whether you are asking people to join your mailing list or trying to get them to complete their online orders.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about the “Ethical Bribe”. Offering someone an incentive to take some form of action. Sign up for a mailing list, complete and online order, tell a friend, you name it.

You’ve seen it hundreds of times. Amazon offers free shipping. TracFone offers free minutes for referring a friend. You get a free report, a free trial, etc. This form of freebie incentive has been around offline for ever.

It’s the same online. You do this and I will give you that. Only, online the give away is usally something that doesn’t “cost” anything. It’s a free report, or free access, or a free service. Online, the incentive can be anything that is perceived to have value to the prospect.
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Summary: Learn why you should give your mailing list readers a reason why you are contacting them.

Are you on a mailing list where the list owner emails you about the next big thing you “need to buy” but doesn’t give you a reason why they contacted you. I know I am on a few of those lists. I stay on them because I want to be constantly reminded that people don’t care about what you want. They care about what they want. You must remember that when you are thinking about what to say to someone in a marketing email.

To give you an example, let’s say I have a widget I want to sell to you. Now I can easily create a quick email and just blurt out what I want, “Buy my widget”. Or, I can consider what you want, which typically is a faster, cheaper, better way to do something. If I do this I might say, “Bob, I have been reviewing a new xyz product. I know you want to make more money with your business and this is how xyz product can help you do that”.

Notice how I have shifted the focus from me to you. I am still involved, but we are opening up a conversation about what you want, not what I want. Ultimately, if I fill your need, I get what I want. But, I can’t just lead in with the end result and expect you to get excited.

The sample sentences I just gave you are only examples of what you might say. There are certainly more and better ways to work the dialog, but I think you get the idea. You see, I don’t get what I want until I focus on what you want. It’s that simple.

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Summary: Learn how to leverage Internet Marketer mailing lists to get a solid picture on what’s hype and what’s not.

If you are new to Internet Marketing, you might be wondering, “Where do I start”. You probably want to know what products will get you the best information for your money so you can start earning money online, rather than spending it. Also, as you are probably wondering which of the information products are hype and which ones have the stuff you need. That’s great question because there is a ton of information and knowing which one to choose is a tough job.

Well I am about to give you a tip that will help weed out some of the noise.

Tip One: is get yourself an email account just for Internet Marketing research. By this I mean, set up an account that you will only use to sign up for Informational product mailing lists. I know the form says “Primary Email” address, but it’s your in box. Put in an address that is dedicated to receiving email from Internet Marketers. Then check that box daily.

Tip Two: is sign up for any mailing list that seems interesting to you. You will learn a lot about the different categories of products and what each of them can do if you begin to learn the language the Internet Marketers are speaking. You will also begin to learn who specializes in what and you will get a feel for who you can understand and possibly relate to the best.

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