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Most Effective Marketing Techniques Explained
 By Robert Smith
©2004 All Rights Reserved
NOTE: This week I am publishing a recent interview I gave in the hopes it might help you formulate a more successful marketing strategy for your own business.
 QUESTION: Can you give us a little background information about yourself and your business?
ANSWER: I started working full time on the Internet in 1996 I lost my skilled trade as a color separation specialist for the printing Industry. You have seen my work on one of Microsoft's software packages.
As high-end graphic computers came into the trade in the early 1990s the market changed, my skills became less valuable and in less demand. I could not support my family with jobs paying less than half the income I had learned to depend on. It became clear that the skills I had developed over the years would no longer provide the security I had come to expect. I lost my job and in less than two months, I was in trouble.
I lived off my savings for months and worked 100-hour weeks as I gradually learned Internet marketing from the beginning. In retrospect, I should have got a day job while I was learning. I bought into the "Internet Riches" hype and didn't expect it to take as long as it did to learn business.
In 1996 hardly anything was selling on the Internet. I discovered early on that access to good information was the key to success and marketing information would be the most profitable product to sell.
It's six years later selling marketing information niche is the most competitive on the Internet, but because I started so early and developed a content rich website of over 5,000 pages I have a huge head start on recent newcomers.
If I was starting over now I would choose a less competitive niche.
QUESTION: Do you sell your own products?
ANSWER: Yes, I sell three information-based products.
Be Your Own Boss" is an ebook about inventing your own successful home-based business based on your own individual strengths and passion. It covers about 80 topics related to growing your home-based business online. It is intergraded into a huge archive of tutorials by respected and successful Internet marketing professionals on my website. I sell this ebook as a stand-alone product and include it free it with my other two information products. I also offer reselling rights.
My second product is a huge downloadable ebook package about Internet marketing a home-based business that comes with reselling rights. This package started with 6 ebooks and now contains over 78 and is still growing. I offer free upgrades and have kept the price the same for over two years.
I also sell a much bigger package on CD. At over 650 Megs it's too big to download, it contains business tools and software in addition to downloadable and resalable info products, graphics, web design templates and software.
>> http://www.ebook2004.com/special/
QUESTION: How long did it take you to build a profitable business?
ANSWER: I work full time. A lot has changed since 1996. Now anyone can get a merchant account and start a successful information business based on whatever special expertise they already have in a matter of a few months. Software to create ebooks is cheap and it really doesn't take nearly as much skill development as it did to when I started.
It took me 3 years to earn a living income. I started out totally inexperienced before there were many people buying on-line. If I can do it anyone can.
Through automating sales and delivery of your products its possible to actually grow your business when you are not able to work. Last year I got sick and couldn't work for over 4 months, yet my income continued to grow during that period.
QUESTION: What do you consider the most difficult part about running an on line business?
ANSWER: Spelling and grammar are really difficult for me. I always require longer to write good sales copy, I try to answer the question "What's in it for me?"
I love what I do so much I find it difficult to turn the business off. It seems that there are always projects that need doing and everything I do requires more time than it would seem.
QUESTION: Can you explain how you market your products (or affiliate programs) on the Internet?
ANSWER: I maintain three high content website totaling more than 5,000 pages. I attract customers with the cooperation of the search engines by offering highly specific targeted and compelling content.
I also publish a weekly email newsletter and a monthly ezine with about 25-feature articles hand picked to help people understand how to sell online. These articles attract traffic for me and for the authors making it a win-win marketing strategy.
All of my products and websites feed off each other and are steadily growing.
All of my products are designed to help people build their own successful home-based Internet business.
I constantly update the products but keep the price the same. I offer free upgrades to grow the product's perceived value over time.
I maintain control the copy write and of distribution to the Marketing CD product but I offer duplicate CDs for resale for $5 each to existing customers.
Maintaining control of the CDs it this way I can keep a stable sales price. Everyone is selling the same CD for the same price so the product's value won't become diluted over time in the marketplace. This strategy has worked well.
I also maintain an affiliate website selling individual ebooks handpicked for filling an identified desire in the marketplace for that specific information.
I offer affiliate programs so people can partner with me and earn 50% of the sales just for referring visitors to my sites through a third party (clickBank) and I have installed a script that protects the commissions of the affiliates by masking their affiliate Ids and the download locations etc.
Affiliate sales are growing and a very good option for folks starting out without the money or skills required to develop their own website.
>> http://www.smithfam.com/signup.html
QUESTION: Why do you think so many on line businesses fail?
ANSWER: It's really simple, businesses don't fail, most never get off the ground. Most people expect too much too soon. Starting a business is like launching a rocket into space, most of the energy is spent just getting it off the ground. It requires less and less effort as a business grows, and profits grows exponentially over time.
We are conditioned to expect to make a set amount of money for a set amount of work. When we work a job we get paid less than we earn in order to make a profit for the employer. We accept this model because it's a sure thing and we can count on it.
Growing a business is not like that. Look at authors, musicians, and actors as motivators; their money comes after the work is done. In the information business, you develop your products and your income comes later AFTER you do the all work.
No one fails that doesn't quit. The key is to realize that your business WILL eventually pay and YOU are ultimately in control of the outcome.
QUESTION: Are you using Ezine advertising? How effective is this form of advertising today?
ANSWER: Targeted ezine advertising is effective. I use mostly in my own weekly ezine. I also use ezine ads and cheap newspaper ads to test my ad copy.
QUESTION: What is your opinion about web promotion software and "traffic generating tools?"
ANSWER: I have found many if not most of the traffic promotion schemes to be a waste of time and/or money. People visit the Internet to find specific compelling information and that is the model I use to attract targeted traffic.
I generate all my traffic from two automated submission programs and I optimize my pages to capitalize on free advertising available through the search engines.
I generate well over 5,000 visitors a day using this strategy but it's not fast, it's taken years.
>> http://www.smithfam.com/ts.html
QUESTION: What is your most effective marketing technique, and why
ANSWER: Internet marketers often overlook cheap classified ads in weekly newspapers. I find it's even less costly than many ezines and easier to track sales.
It's more effective when you can get someone to get on-line in order to visit your website than it is to convert someone to visit your site when they are already on-line for a different purpose.
QUESTION: What are some of your daily marketing tactics that build your on line presence?
ANSWER: Answer email and questions generated from a link on every page on my website titled "Ask Bob".
- Develop automated follow-up messages.
- Create autoresponders for my articles and sales letters
- Write articles, syndicate them to other ezines and publish a small newsletter
- Publish the articles of other professional marketers on my website
- Develop and submit new content for my websites every day
QUESTION:If you had $100 to spend to improve/promote your business, how and where would you spend it?
ANSWER: Purchase resale rights to an information product I could resell.
QUESTION: What's the most effective tool/resource that you use to get new prospects to your Opt In list or Ezine?
ANSWER: Most people that subscribe to my ezine do so after reading one of my articles published elsewhere on the web or on my website or they subscribe after visiting my on-line ezine.
I find most of my subscribers remain on the list for years and many become loyal return customers. This is an area where I need to focus on more in the future.
Offering some sort of free ebook to subscribers would help a lot I just haven't done it, hopefully by the time you read this I will get it done.
QUESTION: What would you like to recommend to people who want to start up an on line business? And what not?
ANSWER: Keep your day job until you replace most of your income and don't do as I did and start a full time venture without a backup income. A job provides a secure income while you take the time to develop your business.
Don't expect it to pay off right away and don't get discouraged too soon, "CAN'T NEVER DID ANYTHING" - "Can't Couldn't".
GOD made time is to keep everything from happing at once. We couldn't handle it if it was any other way. Our success depends on a progression of developing understanding in interrelated business concepts that must be personalized to our own strengths and passion over time.
QUESTION: Anything else that you'd like to add?
ANSWER: The most important tip I can give anyone starting out is to consider the product LAST and research and develop access to your niche market FIRST. Most people already have access to a powerful market based on what they already know or what they do in their free time - they just don't see it as a market.
Find a market that is easy to reach and then a need in that market you can satisfy. This is the easiest way to success in business and almost everyone overlooks it.
ROBERT SMITH
helps thousands successfully market their
Internet based home business. You'll find tons of free marketing tools & resources on his Internet Marketing web
site at: http://www.smithfam.com/.
eBook2004 Internet Marketing CD
http://www.ebook2004.com/special/cd.html
You can reach him by phone at: (541) 689-1847 PST
and by email at. Contact Robert Smith
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