Carbon Copy Marketing “No No’s”

There is actually a course called Carbon Copy Marketing, but this blog post makes no reference to that course since I know very little about it anyway.

What I’m really asking is “are you a carbon copy marketer and to what extent is copying someone elses marketing blueprint benefitting or hurting your online business?”

I’m all for copying to a certain extent but as marketing estrodinaire, Jim Connolly and I discussed with the some weeks ago, following someone elses marketing blueprint can actually be detrimental to your business.

What was interesting from my conversation with Jim was that he has been in marketing for many years and then when he came online, what he did, was applied his knowledge of offline marketing, online.  This is an observation I had made many years ago from the “big guns” in Internet Marketing … most of them worked in marketing prior to making a living online.

Now, I’m not suggesting you give up your online marketing strategies to go learn all about offline marketing since I think perhaps the underlying success factor amongst those who applied their offline strategies online, had something that I believe many online marketing beginners miss ….

They have a real understanding of marketing

They know “how” marketing works … who their target market is, the mindset of their target market and what will make them buy and, they apply these basic principles to their online business.

One of the few things I remember from working toward my MBA, was just how “bad” it was to compete on price only and yet online, whilst subtle, many marketers compete on price!  Have you noticed that all the home study courses cost more or less the same.  Membership sites are popping up all over the place using the same price structure?

The value added bonuses are from the same circle of affiliate marketers and to get the bonus, you have to opt into their list?

If you want to be different, if you want to stand out from the crowd, it’s time to add some value to the products and services you provide.

I stopped competing on price a long time ago but the value I give goes way beyond building a blog.  As I explain to prospects, in the early days when I built blogs, this is as far as most of my clients went with their blogs … the first and last post, was the one I helped them write.

When I began adding value by focusing on building an online business using a blog, over 95% of my clients worked their blogs and made it work for them.

The difference … I stopped competing on price and focused on giving value. And for me, this meant increasing my prices, not lowering them.

The likes of Tesco supermarket make value mean “cheap” but we are not cheap!

We are providing a solution to people wants.  And do notice I said “want” and not “need,” since want is actually a far more powerful motivator than need.  This is why the likes of Tesco do well with their “value” range … they appeal to those people who think they need to cut on spending when in fact, most of them want to reserve money for their wants … going to the cinema, eating out, buying their child a new computer game.

So, how do you add value?

You have to be different?

How do you “be” different?

You have to be creative and, you can start this creative process by asking “how do I want people to feel when they consume my product or use my services?”  “What value can I add that my competitors are not providing?”  You can create your niche within a niche just by being different and therefore, even in a so say oversaturated market, you can compete successfully and win.

Until next time,

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Get Some Basic SEO Tips Direct From Google

This is probably going to be one of the shortest posts I ever write about search engine optimization (SE0).

Want to know the basics of SEO but confused about what is right, what isn’t and is Fred Blogs just trying to sell me something.

Well, there is no more need to guess or be afraid for that matter since Google have just published a basic guide on SEO for beginners.  Even if you’re not a beginner I suggest you go take a look especially if your advice came from a third party.  You never know when they might be wrong or, using clapped out old strategies - even if they did come from Google in the first place … many moons ago!

This is a snippet from the guide about why you should read it:

“Although this guide won’t tell you any secrets that’ll automatically rank your site first for queries in Google (sorry!), following the best practices outlined below will make it easier for search engines to both crawl and index your content.”

I’ve read the guide and even though I am a bit of a techie, there is just practical down to earth information that every marketer could utilise even if they don’t want to go down the full gourmet SEO route.  It’s an extra hours worth of work that could bring you lots more business … for free!

Go to http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com to get a free copy of the guide.

Best,

BlogRush is Dead!

Having received an email from John Reese this morning about his decision to close down BlogRush, I decided to blog about it whilst the American’s were still asleep.

But darn it, I must have dozed and along came the email from Ryan Deiss, saying what I couldn’t have said better.

I’ve no doubt all the “NaySayers” are about to emerge from the woodwork, but I really do take my hat off to John Reese, for making such a huge decision.

I actually thought the email I received was spam when I first read it this morning and had to read it again.  And I’m sure John must have had many sleepless nights thinking “should I, should I not?”

But, I agree with Ryan Deiss on this one …

“Only a Grade-A, Status Quo Coward would chastise John or relish in the “failure” of BlogRush”
Whilst on a much smaller scale, I had to make a decision earlier this year to close down one of my membership sites.

It was fraught with issues right from day one - which incidentally started with choosing the wrong software - and then there was just one technical issue after another and eventually, the time investment just wasn’t giving me the desire I’d imagined.

In addition to all of this, WordPress 2.6 was released which rendered some of my videos outdated.

I know many would still have happily charged for outdated videos, but my conscience wouldn’t let me and eventually, I just allowed free access to my current members and I’m now rebuilding my membership site … so keep a look out.

Incidentally, if you are thinking about building a membership site, then you need to take a serious look at Stu McLaren’s WordPress Membership script.It’s especially made for WordPress and in my view, has many more features than membership sites that will cost you hundreds of dollars in membership fees each year.

I know you must all be fed up of the “Recession” emails going around, I know I am, but seriously, now is not the time to be looking for excuses to fail or pointing the finger at other people’s failures.  From the 1930’s recession emerged some millionaires who were opportunity seekers … will you be one of the millionaires that emerge from this recession?

I personally hope that John Reese provides some insights into the lessons he learnt from BlogRush since I would love to read and learn from his journey from its inception to the close of BlogRush.

Image Advertising is Dead!

It was refreshing to watch Andrew Lock’s first episode of Help My Business Sucks earlier today as he talked about the fact that Image Advertising is Dead.

If you don’t know what image advertising is, it’s what Coca Cola, Ford Motor Company and other large organisations do … they take every and any opportunity to get their logo in front of you and, they attach emotion to their logo by advertising their product in the happiest setting such as on the beach or work break time (Coca Cola and Diet Coke for example).

The problem with image advertising is it’s hugely expensive and the truth is, few companies using image advertising make a return on investment but yet, they still pour millions of dollars into advertising in this way.

If you’re a small business owner or entrepreneur, be warned …

Image Advertising is Dangerously Expensive to the Longevity and Growth of Your Business

I know most people are not going to want to hear that because this is what they were taught in Business School.  I was too, so it’s not sour grapes!  My MBA taught me little about “real world” marketing and depite spending in excess of £10,000 ($20,000) to earn it, it cost me much, much more to learn how to marketing my business both online and offline.

But I’m going to reserve my spiel about what it cost me participate in Image Advertising and the BEST way for small businesses and entrepreneurs to approach marketing for my next blog post.  For now, I want you to watch Andrew Locks’s video and take note of his 21st Century methods for marketing your business.

You’ll be pleasantly surprised that you don’t need an MBA to market effectively.

Until next time,

Who is in Charge of Your Marketing?

Are you in charge of your online marketing or are you leaving it to some third party?

I’m a big fan of Dan Kennedy’s marketing tips and when I first started online, I learnt some valuable lessons from him.  The one that really stuck in my mind is “be in charge of marketing your business.”

But what exactly does Dan Kennedy mean because if you’re a technophobe right, you don’t want to get your hands dirty or tied with website building, graphics or search engine optimization.

Well, the good news is, this isn’t what Dan Kennedy was referring to.

And, I’m going to use a real life situation here to explain my point and I hope after you read this short case study, you’ll be motivated to take control of your marketing.

I was speaking to someone a few weeks back who wanted to put some affiliate links on their site, but they had zero content on their site.  Naturally, I explained that putting up a banner with the affiliate link would be insufficient because to make money, they’d need traffic.

In short, it transpired that despite the fact that this person had been coached for 2 years, they didn’t have a clue about the process of marketing.

This person had thrown their hands up in the air saying they were not technical and in doing so had abdicated (and I do mean abdicated) their entire process of marketing.

Now, you’re probably asking the question “well what about her coach?”  Good question!  But here’s the rub … this person has changed their business model and online business so many times that I was not surprised that two years later, they had no content, no traffic and no business.

To me, it felt that in “deciding” that they were no good technically, they had outsourced everything technical (which is good) but also seemed to have adopted a mentality that you could make money online without traffic and without content.

Needless to say, I was very straight with them and suggested they go sign up to Ed Dales 30 day challenge so they could learn the process of marketing.

Even if you don’t “do” the techie stuff yourself, you need to understand that like anything else, there is a process to marketing.

If you fail to understand that process, you fail to understand marketing and you fail to be in charge of your business.  And the result … your business WILL fail.

With the casestudy I provided you with above, it wasn’t just the absense of content and traffic that was the issue, this person seriously missed the mark on how to get traffic.

I had one person say to me once “my blog’s been up for months now and not one person has signed up to my newsletter.”  Well the answer to that one was easy, “you have five articles on your site which are at best mediocre.”

And, I’m sorry if I offend the freebie seekers now, but learning how to do things properly online does not begin and end with gleaning “tid bits” from this site or that blog - here and there.  At some point, you’re going to have to SPEND SOME MONEY!!!  Did I shout!

I believe I did, but people really have to hear this.  None of us learned to read and comprehend grammar by picking up books and scanning them or reading a page from this book and another page from another.  Getting the whole picture is what what helped with comprhension.

So, if you want to be in charge of your business, you have to be in charge of your marketing and to do that, you’re going to have to learn the process of marketing.  The best way to learn?  Follow a step-by-step program.  If you find a free one then great and I do highly recommend Ed Dale’s 30 Day Challenge for starters.

You’d also do well to hire a coach or mentor who has done what you would like to do so they can show you exactly what you should be doing and, what to avoid.  Ask yourself the question, “how do I learn best,” and then find something that matches your learning style and stick to it.

Even if you outsource elemements of your online business and even if from day one, you have no intention of doing it yourself, understanding the process is going to turn you into a an intelligent and savvy marketer who will know the right questions to ask from the right people.

Until next time,

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