My Internet Marketing Tips

If you’ve been on twitter long, I’m sure you’ve followed people only to unfollow them because of something that was offensive, or they just wern’t worth following anymore because they wern’t providing much value.  Or are you completely new to twitter and you’re wondering what’s acceptable and what’s not?  If that’s the case, welcome aboard.  I’m going to give you the biggest “turn offs” and how to make it less offensive.

The first, and probably biggest turnoff is posting nothing but links saying “go here”, “go there”, “buy this”, “buy that” without giving a compelling “why” and with 140 characters, it’s very hard to do that in one tweet.  What does give a compelling reason why someone should buy through your links is giving them great information, proving you know what you’re talking about before you post any affiliate links.  In fact, if you’re reading this and don’t yet have a twitter account or have just gotten a twitter account, I recommend posting at least 25 tweets within a 1-2 week period (or until you get your 60th tweet overall, whichever is more acheivable for you)  Hint, this is just a guideline for testing how much value you’ve provided on twitter based on how many tweets you have, obviously an @reply which helps another twitter user is obviously going to be more valueable than a general “did you know” tweet or “I’m doing something today with someone” tweet as a general message, and if most of you’re tweets are @replies that are answering people’s questions, you’re obviously going to get a good response with more affiliate links than someone who posts very few, if any @replies, especially if they don’t answer any questions from other twitter users.

OK, the next biggest turn off is ignorant comments past off as jokes.  People want to know that you know what you’re talking about, If you know nothing about politics or the plumbing industry, than you have no business telling a nasty joke about Joe the Plumber like this one marketer did (and I won’t name names because that’s will give him publicity I don’t want him to have and I don’t want anyone who follows this other marketer to stop following me because you’re going to move to their side and against me).  But I will say that nasty, ignorant comments about people who are just doing their job, asked a simple question and got the president elect to say what he really believes and is being trashed for it by people who have no idea how to even plunge a toilet!  Let me take this back home, if someone who had absolutely no knowledge of marketing made a joke about how internet marketers steal money from poor people, wouldn’t that offend you as an internet marketer?  The main point I want to drive home with this is be careful when making jokes, do your research before you make any kind of joke around any issue, and never make political jokes, those are one of the most offensive types of jokes unless you have the facts to back up the joke (and make sure you have the real facts, most “news” sources push opinions based in nothing but their emotions as news, this is especially true of cnn).

Now I don’t like talking about politics when I’m supposed to be talking about marketing, there are other sites for politics, which I don’t frequent much because it’s quite the hotbead for harrassment and rage, but it served as an example of how sounding ignorant can ruin any chance for gaining anybody’s respect.  I was following the marketer who tweeted that joke about Joe the Plumber before he tweeted it hoping to get marketing advice, but I got more tweets from his personal life and about politics than I did marketing advice and once that ignorant comment came, that was it, I didn’t just unfollow him, I blocked him from getting anymore of my updates, that was the only time I’ve ever used the “block” feature.

I used the politics niche as my example of how ignorant comments damage your reputation in your niche because I’ve had personal experience with this, but the same applies to all niches, don’t joke about anything unless you know what your talking about because ignorant comments, whether intended to be funny or not, are no laughing matter, they will offend people because you don’t know what you’re talking about, and stay away from politics if you can.  I can’t tell you how many people have followed me and I’ve decided not to follow them in return because they expressed a political veiw in thier tweets that I find reprehensible.  Any attempt at brainwashing that tells the people that pushes the same crap they’re believing that “the problem is government, so we need more government”, I don’t have time for, so anyone who shoves it in my face or sneaks it under my door, I just block them.  If I see it before following them, that’ll be the one thing that will cause me to absolutely refuse to follow the person back.

The third turn off is spamming, people don’t need to see the same message over and over again, once is enough.  This also brings me to announcing your new followers, just send them an @reply thanking each new follower for following you.  Is it more work?  Yes, but if you take the time to thank each new follower with an @reply, you will get more loyalty from the people who follow you than you will with a message announcing all your new followers for the day.

At the end of the day, all you really need is common sence to know what’s acceptable on social networking sites like twitter, the guidelines I gave you are just that, guidelines.  If you want to know more about twitter etiquitte, or if you would like to tell me what bothers you the most about what twitter users do, be sure to leave a comment and if I get enough comments, I might make a full information product about twitter etiquitte, I haven’t decided if it’ll be an ebook or an audio, but of course, I’ll need enough input on this blog to detemine if it’ll be a marketable product.

Happy tweeting,

Ben

If you’re planning on starting an online business and you don’t have much business experience, I would recommend buying things you enjoy in bulk on ebay and selling them on http://www.auctionsas.com.  Yes it’s a smaller site, but you will lose money if you sell on ebay because their listing fees are exorbitant, the fees for selling on auctionsas are almost nonexistant.  However, you may not get very many sales on auctionsas at first, so I would suggest selling maybe five items at most on ebay and than tell them about auctionsas so you can have repeat customers on auctionsas.

Now that I’ve given my two cents on online auctions, it is worth noting that you should always have a plan, no matter what you’re selling.  Whether you’re selling coins and collectables, toys, books, or even ebooks, you need a detailed plan as to how to market your products, how you plan on shipping your products (if applicable), and there are other things you’ll need to consider such as terms of service and if you’re shipping your merchandise, you’ll need to set deadlines for shipping.  My deadline for shipping physical products is two business days after payment is recieved.  I always do my best to ship immediately after payment is recieved so I don’t delay.

Also, if you’re selling in any situation, you will need to provide your absolute best customer service because if you treat a customer poorly, you will earn a bad reputation.  This is especially true if you respond poorly to negative and neutral feedbacks, just see for yourself at auctionsiteassholes.com, bad customer service will kill you as a marketer because it will spread like a wildfire.  The Book, Ebay Income: how anyone can build an online business with ebay, goes into more detail on the online auction portion of your business.  It is written with ebay in mind, but teaches concepts that can be used with any online auction site, including auctionsas.com

To your success,

Ben

If you’re a collage student or even someone who’s in that age group, chances are you have at least one credit card.  According to Nellie Mae, 83% of the undergraduate students had at least one credit card and 6% of those same people have a balance over $7000.  The problem with this situation is that most of this debt isn’t being used for an online business, it’s being used to purchase personal items with no real value (or as rich dad would say, “doodads”).  The worst part is that those balances aren’t being paid off month after month, I mean, do those collage students really expect to have $7000/month in disposable income when they get out of collage?  Maybe some do, but I would venture to guess that most collage students don’t even care, they want stuff and they want it now (most with credit cards anyway).

However, if used properly, credit cards can be very useful tools, but you have to know how to use them.  If you mishandle credit cards, life will be very miserable.

Brent Riggs has an ebook called Life without debt: Extreme get out of debt secrets.  It does go to some extremes, like his veiw on credit cards (i.e. you should never have them), is rather extreme, but that’s because Brent Riggs has experienced bad debt himself and that bad debt has made him fearful of getting into good debt, therefore, his own experience tells him that credit cards in all situations are bad.  However, until you’ve gotten control over your spending for at least 6 months after all credit cards have been paid off, you shouldn’t use them at all.  In other words, you should know you can pay off your credit cards before you even consider getting one and you must have the willpower to say “no” or “later” to yourself when considering an out of budget purchase, regaurdless of what that is, and set priorities, don’t buy doodads before you buy food or pay bills.

Now what does this have to do with internet marketing?  Everything.  If you can’t run your own life on budget, than how can you possibly run a successful business, online businesses are no different especially since businesses tend to have a wider variety of expenses than individuals, therefore, a greater need for prioritization and budgeting.

To your success,

Ben

ok, here’s the big deal, I asked the driver for my $0.76 change, he only gave me $0.56 change back and he did so grumbling.  (especially about gas prices)  What really ticked me off is not so much the fact that I was short changed twenty cents, but that the only change the driver gave me was handed over while grumbling about it.  This is poor customer service and I don’t know if Jermey (the Papa John’s driver who delivered my pizza) was having a bad day already, or if that set him off, but in either case, in order to serve your customers to the best of your ability, you will have to do some things that you will not want to do to keep the customer happy.

As a bagger at a local grocery store, I have to do some things that make me feel uneasy too, so in a sense, I can empathize with Jeremy, but if I were to say to a customer who wants their bags packed when they put a chemical such as bug poison in with food items “that’s supposed to go in a separate bag”, that could get me fired because I didn’t let the customer do it their way, that is exactly what Jeremy did, only in a different situation, and if he gets fired from Papa John’s and ends up with a job at the grocery store I work at, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets himself fired by trying to tell the customer what they want.

ok, I’m done ranting,

Ben

If you subscribe to as many newsletters as I do, you will have probably received at least one promotion for Confessions of a Lazy super Affiliate, or have you? This is a relatively under promoted ebook as far as people mailing to their list about it (based on what I’ve seen), and even if you have gotten an email about it, you probably haven’t gotten a truly informed review of the ebook because most affiliates, especially on clickbank, promote a product without buying it first. I know, I’m guilty of that too, but not this time. This time I bought Chris Rempel’s Confessions of a Lazy Super Affiliate before I even thought about promoting it, much less reviewing it.  I will be exposing some highlights that even Chris didn’t reveal on his sales page, but only for the sake of reviewing it.  I am not going to review something I have read myself based on the sales page when I’ve read the actual ebook.  However, I will not take large blocks of text directly from the ebook, I will only expose one concept that is taught in the ebook and how it can be applied.

Now on to the review.

Chris Rempel expresses the idea in Confessions of a Lazy Super Affiliate that the worst business advice is to “do what your passionate about” . The notion that “Do what your passionate about” is bad advice can be very bad advice for those who are just starting, but the point Chris was trying to make when saying that is “Don’t limit yourself to what you enjoy if you’re looking for an affiliate product to promote that you know will sell well on a short term basis”.  From that angle, and when you consider the fact that Chris is targeting intermediate affiliate marketers who have no interest in developing a product of their own, the advice he gives about “do what your passionate about” being bad business advice can be good advice, but only for his target market.

As for the newbies and those with an interest in developing their own product, Chris Rempel’s advice regarding the advice “Do what your passionate about” can be bad advice.  If you’re interested in developing you’re own product, it must be something you’ll enjoy or else you’ll lose interest in it and loose everything you’ve invested in the product, and if you’ve announced the product before it was finished and if you stop mid way after you’ve announced a product, you may loose credibility, especially if it becomes a pattern, so for that reason.

Chris Rempel’s ebook, Confessions of a Lazy Super Affiliate, also expresses a very controversial view on Adsense, to find out what his view point on Adsense is, order Confessions of a Lazy Super Affiliate right now because I already leaked one of Chris Rempel’s viewpoint and I’m not going to leak another, but I will warn you, he’s very blunt and anti-hype, so if you enjoy hype, prepare to be offended, otherwise click here to order your copy of Confessions of a Lazy Super Affiliate.

Hello,

No matter what market you’re in, the research you do will determine your success. For example, if you’re an affiliate marketer, if you don’t do research, you will not know how good the products your promoting or even if the product provides the value that is promised, and if there is any uncertainty in your mind about the product, you will not promote it effectively. Another form of research that’s important is market research, if you don’t find out what your target market wants before you create an information product and your target market doesn’t want your information product, you have two options, to give up on the information product, or find a new target market (which requires research).

To find what your target market wants, you must first give away free information to find out what converts best and drive traffic from as many sources as you see fit and can keep track of, and make sure you track all the sources your traffic and their conversion rates for each squeeze page, this will tell you what your target market wants. If you don’t want to do that much testing, you can, as a peer, ask the consumers what they want to learn most or what problems they want solved, they can be found in forums that are related to the niche(s) you want to market to.

To your success,

Ben