It seems that blogging because it’s cool has lost it’s allure. What is this about “professional bloggers”? They are a rising class. If you’ve read my book(s), you know that I’m a huge proponent of blogging to increase SEO, build your fan base, and connect with people.
If you have a business, you should have a blog.
While professional bloggers are “a rising class,” according to Technorati, hobbyists are in retreat, and about 95 percent of blogs are launched and quickly abandoned. A recent Pew study found that blogging has withered as a pastime, with the number of 18- to 24-year-olds who identify themselves as bloggers declining by half between 2006 and 2009.
Product photography could well be the single most important design aspect of any e-commerce website. Without the ability to touch, hold, smell, taste or otherwise handle the products they are interested in, potential customers have only images to interact with. Ultimately, the softer, tastier, flashier and more attractive your products look to shoppers, the more confident they’ll feel about purchasing from you and the better your conversion rate will be.
If you want to learn more about marketing things online, these blogs can help. There is some great info in there.
Top 42 Content Marketing Blogs
The Junta42 Top 42 Content Marketing Blogs list highlights the best bloggers on the web discussing content marketing. Each blog on the list has been rated by our expert staff in terms of content strength, depth, regularity and, to a very small extent, popularity.
Rank Blog Name Focus
1 Brian Solis Social Media/Public Relations
2 Copyblogger Copywriting – Blogs/Blogging
Most people focus on selling their product to people who are looking for their product. There are a lot of people in this world who don’t even know you exist, much less are looking for your product.
SEO is optimizing for search engines, for people who are searching for a specific keyword. We’d love to own those keywords so that people who look for them will find us first. The whole goal of SEO is to be at the top of the list when a person types in our keyword.
That’s like putting up a bigger sign outside, so if someone is looking for your store, they can find it easily. That’s good, as long as someone is looking for your store.
Case Study
So at age 20 Debbi Fields started her first cookie store at Liddicoat’s Market in Palo Alto. She signed the lease under the name Mrs. Fields’ Chocolate Chippery. On August 18, 1977, she opened her store at 9 a.m., but by noon nobody had bought even one cookie. Frustrated and afraid to fail, she took samples to people on the streets. They liked the samples so returned to actually buy cookies. Providing free samples to potential customers remained a cornerstone of her business in the years to come.
Mrs. Fields didn’t sell any cookies sitting in her store. She went out into the streets and gave away free samples.
As a result, people who didn’t even know they wanted a cookie, went to her store to buy cookies. They didn’t leave their houses that morning thinking that they wanted cookies. They didn’t search for cookies. They never intended to go buy cookies. They certainly didn’t type “cookies” into Google.
She got out of her store, and went to where people were doing other things, and suggested that maybe a cookie might be nice.
If you want to sell your products to people who are not looking for you, don’t stay where you are, but go to where they are, and make a small suggestion. There is a big Internet out there, with lots of web sites and blogs and forums. There are a lot of people looking for things that are not your product, but might be related to your product.
Related Topics
Figure out what topics or products or areas of interest might be related to your product. If you sell jewelry, maybe a wedding planner might become a good friend. If you sell doors, there are architectural and home improvement sites out there that you could leave some comments on. Maybe you sell ceramic pottery and you could hook up with some interior designers, or maybe that guy who sells doors.
I can imagine that jewelry maker hanging out on men’s lifestyle sites, waiting for someone to ask about gifts for their wife.
5 Targets
After you’ve decided on at least related 5 topics, you want to find web sites that relate to those topics. Use Google or Technorati to create a list of target web sites that might be places that potential customers might hang out.
You might want to build a relationship with the owner of the site, or you might want to just establish a presence on the site with comments. Your approach depends on the specific topic and that site. Leaving comments is a great way to start any relationship. Leave valuable, insightful comments.
As you make connections with people outside of your niche, the market for your product will expand and you will be able to sell your products to people who never knew you existed and never went looking for you.
Do you remember the first time you received an email?
I got my first email on Christmas day in 1992. My wife had bought me an “Internet Starter Kit” for Christmas. It was a dial up account. I had some technical trouble, so I sent an email to their customer support. I got a response. Wow. A new world erupted.
Now, years later, I have lost track of how many emails I get each day, and how many get bounced by my spam filters before I ever see them. I can’t go out to dinner without checking my email. If you want to talk to me, it’s better to send me an email than to call me. I’m that bad.
Email is direct. It’s personal. It’s from someone else straight to you. It’s now, in the moment. It only takes a second.
We’ve developed filters to pass up email that doesn’t look interesting, but if it does make us curious, we read it. If we know the person sending it to us, or if we have a relationship with the sender, then we’ll open it.
The key to email is building the relationship, and the trust, with the person you are sending it to, so they open it.
The key to the trust part of that is to ask permission, then don’t abuse the permission when you get it.
If you were to create a mailing list, using a company that provides that service, you can ask for people to give you their email addresses. You then have permission to send them email. Using the service, managing all of that is easy.
Everyone who comes across your site, for whatever reason, can be captured for potential future sales. If someone finds your site, is interested, but then wanders away and never finds their way back, they are forever lost as a customer of yours.
If you can get their email address and send them regular newsletters or notices, (or whatever you want to call your emails), they will always have a link back to your site. They will be reminded of your products. They have raised their hand and shown interest in your stuff. We love these people.
So, the step by step process is to create an account with a mailing list service provider. I use and recommend Aweber, (affiliate link) but there are others that provide great service too.
When you have an account, follow their directions to set up a list, then a form, so that people can subscribe to your newsletter. You need to put that form on your web site. If you don’t have a web site, get one. You can get a free site at http://www.wordpress.com. If you do nothing more than create the site and put the form on the home page, do it.
You need to make it as easy as possible for people to subscribe to your mailing list.
If you can give away something free in exchange for subscribing, you’ll get a good response. Put the form in the top right corner of the page, if you can. That’s where people expect to “do stuff”, like search or forms. Everybody does it that way because everybody does it that way.
Once you get the list set up, send regular emails. Make the email valuable, so that people are trained to open them. Give them a reason to open them. Once you give away a lot of good stuff for free, people will be happy to buy your stuff. They are fans.
The subject of newsletters and subscribing to mailing lists is a deep subject, with many posts that can be written about it. Someday, I’ll write them.
For now, just remember: “the money is in the list”.
Are you at a loss about what to write about in your blog? (You do have a blog, don’t you?)
Here is some great advice about what to write in your blog that will get you more traffic, (that is more customers.)
The advice he gives in this article can be powerful, so use it wisely.
Think about your niche. Right now, 90% of the people blogging about topic are huddled around mediocrity. No one wants to offend, shock or make waves. Another 5% are living double lives. One day they are Dr. Jekyll, the other Mr. Hyde. They are searching for their voice and looking for the courage to break free.
The last 5% are jaw-droppers. Every post they pen oozes personality. Their blog has a hypnotic draw that inspires a fanatical following. You’ll find these “artists” in every niche and industry: resume writing, law, gardening, librarians (I’m serious!) and hundreds more.
They inspire and make social media look easy.
You can too because I’m going to give you the recipe to making your blog absolutely fascinating. By the way, the bloggers that push the envelope get their guest posts published, strike up lucrative partnerships and land those juicy joint ventures. Do not ignore this…
Sonia has some great tips in this article, 101 of them, actually. My personal favorite is #15 and I’ll be working that one.
Read them all, then get to work.
If you’re trying to make money online, sooner or later you have to face it. Conversion. That intimidating topic: how to get more buyers from the same amount of traffic.
The only reason conversion is intimidating is that there are a lot of places you can go astray. Most of them aren’t that hard to fix, but any one of a thousand little problems can keep you from getting the conversion you should have.
I don’t have a thousand tips for you today, but I do have 101 to get you started.
Here are 101 fixes, some small, some big, for making more sales online.
This post describes the process that an artist or creative person can use to make a living from creating what they love. I’ve seen many examples of it, so I know it works. It’s not easy, but it’s simple. Any one can do it, if they really want to.
If you’re an artist or creative person of any kind then ‘creating’ is a lot higher on your list of priorities than ’selling’.
One of the great joys of pursuing your creative passion is the sheer pleasure of writing, painting, making music, acting, taking pictures or whatever you do — without any ulterior motive, and without needing to show any kind of ‘return on investment’. You do it because you love to do it. Amen to that.
On the other hand, even if you don’t want to be a millionaire, I bet you wouldn’t mind a little fame. Not vulgar Hello! Magazine celebrity, but maybe the respect of your fellow artists, and some critical recognition. A few adoring fans probably wouldn’t hurt either.
You don’t have to be rich as well as famous, but all of us have bills to pay, so I’m guessing you wouldn’t mind earning a decent living from your creative work. Getting paid to do what you love has to be one of the greatest gigs on earth.
Here’s a link to an interview, an audio interview, with the guy who wrote the post above (or below. I forget which way this sorts.)
They talk about having a strategy and tactical knowledge. That’s exactly the kind of stuff that is explained in the Simple Guide To Internet Marketing Basics. Listen to what they have to say. If you have any questions, come ask them here.
That’s the good news. But artists also have a few weaknesses.
Frequently artists are resistant to marketing in general and marketing themselves in particular.
Some are scared of selling out or just plain scared.
Some feel the pain of trying to balance time invested in marketing with time in the studio— content marketing is cheap butit requires persistence and dedication to succeed.
Content marketing also requires strategy— it’s no good just posting your artwork, writings, videos etc. and hoping this will magically lead to fame and fortune. Artists need to create content with their desired audience in mind (not pandering but being aware of what gets their attention), as well as considering their own goals, and having a content strategy that gets them where they want to go.
Tactical knowledge also matters— things like using a professional blog platform, getting people to subscribe, offering e-mail subscription, copywriting, headlines etc.
Mark and I will talk about how to take advantage of your creative strengths and how to solve the difficulties listed above.
Listen to the first 2 chapters for free, just to hear my wonderful voice!
The book has been up and ready to read for a few days now and I’m getting caught up with the audio files. I just finished the last ones today. Each chapter is a separate file, so there is a set of 10 audio files.
M4A files, or AAC files, are available as well as MP3 files. There are both file format versions of each chapter, so I guess there really are 20 files total. There is a total of 69 minutes and 29 seconds in the files.
You can download the first two chapters for free, by clicking the links in the matrix below.
If you buy the book, you’ll see this matrix below, only all of the links will actually work.
The book is available now. For a limited time, two weeks, you can get it at half off the normal price. Use this coupon code: CDBFD266C7. It is good until midnight on August 2nd, 2010.
You can have more customers, buying more of your products, because you applied the lessons in this book. You will make your online presence more successful, because you understand the background principles, general strategies, and specific steps to follow.
Easy To Understand
Written for beginners with no background in online marketing, it will be easy for you to understand.
You get access to a dedicated web site with videos, an audio file download, a forum to talk with other people about issues in the book, plus direct access to me, if you have any questions or need any help.
You can download the first chapter if you want to read it before you buy. There’s a ONE YEAR guarantee if you ever want your money back for any reason.
The Simple Guide To Internet Marketing Basics will be released later this week. With over 11,000 words, it’s full of great information that will help you easily discover the secrets of making money on the Internet.
It’s written in the same style as the Simple Guide to SEO, so you’ll be able to understand every word.
Discount Pricing!
If you want to get discount pricing on it, subscribe to the Advanced Notice Mailing List. I’ll be sending out a notice telling you how to get special pricing that will be available for a limited time.
The special pricing is only available for members of the Advanced Notice Mailing List. Please subscribe now. Thanks!
Here is the outline of the coming ebook, The Simple Guide To Internet Marketing Basics. The content has all been written, so we’re working on the formatting and getting it polished. We’re getting close!
Advanced Notice Mailing List
Remember that if you want advanced notice of when it’s coming out, please subscribe to the advanced notice mailing list. I promise that you will get discounts and offers that no one else will get, plus notice of upcoming offers before they are known to any one else.
Here is the outline. If you click on the arrows, it will expand that section, so that you can see the entire thing. Tell me what you think and if you want anything else added to it. I’m always looking for feedback, so leave a comment! Thanks.
The Simple Guide To Internet Marketing Basics
Introduction
Chapter 1. Marketing 101
What is Marketing?
The Story
Unique Selling Proposition
Target Demographic
Worksheet Time
Chapter 2. Strategy
The Clue Train
Relationship Marketing
How to build a relationship
Chapter 3. The Four Steps
Chapter 4. Step One – Get a Web Site
Keywords
Worksheet Time
Domain name
Top Level Domain
The name itself
Register it
Web Site
Worksheet Time
Set it up
Blog
Chapter 5. Step Two – Get people to read your site.
SEO
Advertising
CPM
CPC
AdWords
Social Media
Track it
Worksheet Time
Chapter 6. Step Three – Get people subscribed to a mailing list
Michael Martine, Blog Coaching & Consulting, Remarkablogger.com
I’ve been reading Michael Martine’s blog, at Remarkablogger.com for a while.
He’s always got great, solid, down-to-earth advice. You should check his whole site out if you are serious about blogging. His focus is on business blogging, actually making money from a blog. He’s a consultant and will help you through whatever questions you might have.
He’s one of the few blogging experts out there that will give you the real deal, without the hype.
Sometimes, I forget to cover the basics, like why blogging is the perfect small business marketing tool, then other people remind me and all I have to do is point at them.
Blogging is the perfect small business marketing tool. If you’re selling and gaining leads via the web, then the web is also your main marketing super-channel. How to do people locate what they need online? Two ways:
1. Online search
2. Word of mouth through online channels like email, blogs, and other social tools (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
Here is the post that inspired this post. Thanks to Laura Roeder.
On video there’s nothing to hide behind. It’s your verbal stumbles and nervous laughter and futzing with the neckline of your shirt. It’s your face, your wrinkles, the miscombed part in your hair. Your crooked smile and teeth and glasses. Your weird mannerisms. Your messy office.
You’re not doing videos, because video is you.
But let me tell you my secret.
Letting everyone see you naked, in all of your imperfections, is exactly what make video so delicious.
I’m naked in every video I’ve posted online. In all of my dorkyness, everything I would love to improve via diet and exercise and a few intensive sessions with a voice and acting coach. Every bra strap foible, the phone ringing in the background, the fire trucks sirens on the street outside my apartment, the way I keep forgetting my train of thought, the annoying way I play with my hair.
We watched the new Food Network Star TV show on Sunday. They picked a bunch of people that might be good for TV, then make a TV show about giving them challenges, and eliminating them one by one, until they get down to the one person they will give their own TV show on the Food Network. Everyone wants to be a star.
It was great to see all these fresh faces, trying to do a promo to a camera. I mocked and laughed as they stumbled and got nervous in front of the camera. I love watching reality TV, just to judge people, and to feel better about myself, while they fail.
Then I decided that I could do way better in front of a camera than they did. I’d make my own video for this blog. Ha!
Videos can help bring more traffic to your site. The technology is easy. That hard part is getting in front of the camera.
Here’s my first video blog post. Wow. Way harder than it looks.
Mock away. (Please tell me if you have problems playing the video.)
At the end, I ask you to leave a comment and tell me what the most valuable thing I ever did for you was. I told you to ask your customers what their needs, wants and desires are, so I figured I better ask you that same thing.
The tribe has spoken. Please leave a comment. Thanks.
I am working on a book titled “The Simple Guide To Basic Internet Marketing” and this is the rough draft of Chapter One. Please leave feedback in the comments.
Introduction
The world has changed. The Internet is becoming a normal part of everyday life for a majority of people. With every new change in technology, comes the rise and fall of businesses as they try to adapt, from railroads to airplanes, from buggies to cars, from radio to TV, from vinyl records to CDs to MP3s.
Today is no different. It’s adapt or die.
Many people who own a small business know that they should “do something” about the Internet, that there is a huge opportunity out there somewhere, but they are not quite sure how to do it, much less do it efficiently, and if that they miss that opportunity, it might mean the end of their business.
The biggest issue that we heard from small business owners, and everyone else, for that matter, is that they don’t understand this stuff. No one has the time to find and distill all of the information. They do research and the technical information that they find is too complex, too difficult to understand. They are afraid and overwhelmed by it all. It’s frustrating.
Our purpose is empowering non technical people by explaining technical things in easy to understand terms. This book is written in that “easy to understand” style and will show you how to use the tools available on the Internet to sell your products more efficiently. Your learning path will start with concepts that will solidify into goals, then work through the strategies, and end up with step by step tactics that will make it easy for you to understand what to do and how to do it.
Did I mention that it will be “easy to understand”?
Let’s get started.
Chapter One – Marketing 101
What is marketing?
Before we talk about marketing on the Internet, we have to talk about just plain old marketing.
Generally, you think marketing is that bad commercial on late night TV with the used car dealer yelling at you. That’s part of it, maybe the most visible part, but that’s not “marketing”.
That means that the look and feel of your web site is marketing. How you answer the phone is marketing. Your profile picture, your pricing, the color of your products, and how big the font is on your web site is all part of marketing.
The Story
There’s another concept that I heard from Seth Godin, who has a blog that you should read every day. This concept is “the story“.
Everyone has ideas in their head, a bias, a point of view, a value system that works it’s way out to a belief system. When a person is told something, or becomes aware of something, it gets filtered through this belief system. You need to understand the belief system of your target market and “tell a story” that fits into their belief system.
You shouldn’t lie. We’re not talking about presenting a falsehood. You should present your product in a way that fits your audience and what they believe to be true. Most of what we believe is a matter of interpretation without an empirical basis in absolute reality. (I was a philosophy major in college for a while.)
You will not be as successful trying to change the belief structure in their head, as you will be selling into the belief structure in their head. If they don’t value what you are selling, they are no going to buy it, no matter what.
There are many examples in the world of politics and religion, but I want you to buy another book from me someday, so I won’t mention any of those. Let’s use a more common example.
Answer this question:
A Venti Caffè Latte from Starbucks that costs $5.85 is:
A. A handcrafted beverage that will give me the pleasure that I deserve because I’m worth it.
B. An overpriced cup of pretentious bitter hot water that rich, arrogant snobs buy.
(I know I said that I wouldn’t talk about religion and then I brought up Starbucks, which I know is a religion for some people. Sorry.) What did we learn from that example?
If you want to sell pretentious hot water, you need to tell the story of how high the quality is and why you deserve such a great cup of handcrafted beverage. Price won’t matter. Exclusivity matters. Quality matters.
If you were to compete against Starbucks, you might want to talk about how your coffee is even more exclusive and higher quality, like Stumptown Coffee does in Portland.
Here’s an example from the world of cars. This 1966 Chevrolet Corvette Coupe was sold for $88,000 at auction because Dan Hines ran it in SCCA SW division races in 1966. You can buy another car from a collector, identical to this one, except for the racing history, for about $60,000. Why pay the extra $28,000? You’re paying for the story. You’re not buying “just metal and rubber” any more than that latte is “just flavored hot water.”
Unique Selling Proposition
That brings us to you. You need to answer this question, and I don’t mean to be rude here, but you need an answer, “Why should anyone buy anything from you?”
I know you have reasons. You just have to define them. Price, reliability, and quality are all good, but not unique, unless they are. Why are you different than your competition?
Your competition includes “doing nothing”. Why is buying from you better than sitting home and watching TV? What is going to move a customer from arms folded across their chest to reaching for their wallet?
What exactly are you selling? Hot water or a handcrafted beverage? Perhaps you are selling “you”, your own personality. Maybe you are selling an experience more than a product. Maybe it’s a feeling. Would you like to buy a cup of bitter hot water or a cup of sweet superiority?
Target Demographic
One thing that working out this USP does for you is to define who you will be selling to, as well as who you will not be selling to.
You want to know who your best customer is. Demographic is a fancy word for describing a person. How would you describe your target market? Age, sex, and economic status are classic ways, but what is special about your target? Would they pay extra for the racing heritage of an old car? Would they pay for a handcrafted beverage? Who would pay for your product? What problem does it solve and who has that problem?
The area to focus on with your target is their needs, desires, and values. You want to solve a problem for them, so define the problems they have. You know some facts about them. Everyone has some common needs, like ice cream, but what are the specific needs that your customers have? What do you know about their needs, wants, and values?
If you don’t have answers to these questions, ask them. Call them, email them, casually chat with them, do Google searches for them, but find out the answers to these questions.
Worksheet Time
Half of the solution is asking the right questions. I’m asking you these.
1. What is your unique selling proposition? Name 5 things that makes you different.
2. Get specific. Finish these sentences:
My company is the one that ______________________
I am the person who ________________________
My product is the only one that ____________________
3. What are you selling? Name 10 adjectives describing your company or your product.
4. Describe your “story”. Write a 3 sentence description of your story.
5. Describe your ideal customer. Name 10 facts, needs, desires, or values that you know about them.
6. What words or phrases would your customers use to search for you with? Name 10 and rank them.
7. From everything you’ve written above, fill in the blanks below:
My customer needs ________________, more than anything, and my product will solve their problem by ___________________ because it’s the only product that is __________________.
I finally sat down to start writing the book, A Simple Guide To Basic Internet Marketing, and this is what I came up with.
I always start with an outline. I wanted to organize all of the information that I have swirling around in my head. I figured I should review what some others have written about it. I was interested in one book in particular that I remember teaching me a lot.
As I read through it, I realized that they had a lot of great ideas, facts that are true, and pearls of wisdom, but it was like walking through a paintball war zone. Things were flying at me from all directions. There was no order or organization to it.
The problem is that there are general background concepts about marketing and there are tactics specific to the Internet. It’s difficult to explain concepts, strategies, and tactics at the same time. You should know phrases like “Unique selling proposition”, “Target market demographics”, “Conversions”, and “Relationship Marketing”. You will hear them in any marketing book. I want to focus on Internet Marketing tactics. I need to explain concepts first so that the tactics make sense.
Here is the core of how to market specifically on the Internet. I see 4 steps. Every business is different and there are many variations, but the “straight down the middle”, step by step process, is linear and easy to follow. I think this is the basic way that most people who are selling a product or a service will be successful.
Yes, I really used this photo to illustrate 4 steps
Here are the four basic steps to Internet Marketing:
1. Get a web site. It’s the center of the universe. All roads lead back to your web site. Without a web site, there’s no foundation to build everything else on.
2. Get people to read your site. SEO, social media, advertising are all ways to get traffic to your site. Targeting specific people that meet your target market is part of this effort. Getting people in the front door is what this is about.
3. Get people subscribed to a mailing list. Use a mailing list management service to allow your readers to subscribe and manage themselves.
4. Sell to the mailing list. Publish a newsletter. In that newsletter, you should offer valuable content and then sell your products.
If you follow these steps, you will understand the basics of Internet marketing. You will be selling stuff.
If you know how to do each of these steps, you don’t need to buy the book. If you need help and advice, explained in a simple, easy to understand way, then the book will be really helpful.
There’s a lot of talk these days about creating the business, product, or service of your heart. Kind of like business as self-actualization tool. We’re all supposed to create the thing that would bring us transendental bliss to make. Create soulful stuff, they say, and people will come.
Yes. Fair enough. If you create exactly what makes your heart sing and publicize it adequately, your odds are good that eventually, somebody will show up and buy your sh*t.
Alternatively, you could look at the people you have now and solve a problem they already have.
You see this a lot in, weirdly enough, craft businesses and techie types.
I heard about a friend of a friend recently who had a bunch of ideas for businesses to start. All of the ideas were bunk. (Yes, bunk. I said it.) It seemed that all of the ideas were about what they wanted to do and had no relationship with what anyone else, their customers, might want. They wanted to sell where there was no market. They wanted to produce a product that no one wanted.
“It’s great that you want to sell this thing, but you realize that no one will pay you any money for it, right?”
I was talking with another friend recently who had one idea for a business they were starting. It met a specific need for a large market. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t “fulfilling”. It did save a lot of money for the clients and could possibly make him a lot of money. There was the possibility of a million dollar deal in the works.
“Do what you love and the money will follow” has been going around for years. There is some truth to that. There’s a lot more truth to “Find a problem and solve it.”
Marketing, at it’s core, is about what your customer needs and meeting that need.
Forget about yourself. No one cares what you want. It’s not about you.
The craft people she mentions love doing their crafts. They add features and make products that they love to make. It makes them happy. If you want to be happy, make the nice things that you love. If you want to make money, make the nice things that other people love.
I’m a techie type, so I know what she’s talking about with us. We love to add cool features because of the cool technical challenges. We think that everyone else is as interested in AJAX and PHP and databases as we are. They aren’t. No one cares that the database is UTF8_Unicode compatible. They just want it to work. “But, dude! This is 64 bit!”
I once read a study that asked people what they most valued in supermarkets. I figured the number one issue was price. I’m always looking for the cheapest price on stuff. I was wrong. The top priority for stores where people buy their food is “cleanliness”. Woah, I guess that’s right. Me too. I didn’t think of that. What aren’t you thinking of? What aspect of your service or product do people care the most about, but you didn’t think of?
Think about who you are selling to. It’s time for a little market research. Ask. Watch. Listen.
Here’s a practical way to find out what people want, by looking at what people search for on the Internet.
What is your client’s greatest problem? How can you solve it for them? You may think this is a simple question, or that you’ve heard it before, but if you don’t have an answer, then you don’t have a successful business.
Find a problem and solve it. If you do that, you’ll make a ton of money.
What problem have you solved? Tell us in the comments.
You might know that I own and operate the web site at www.survivor.com. We just had the finale of Heroes vs Villains, where Russell made it to the end and failed again. Sandra won for the second time, which proved to be a controversial outcome.
While watching this season, I learned a few things about Internet Marketing, because I’ll do anything to come up with a theme for a blog post.
Here is what I learned:
Russell played the way that he thought was best. He was aggressive, and got to the final 3, but had never considered how to get the jury to vote for him in the end. After the show he told us that “I did my own thing. I don’t care.” He lost.
1. Nice that you can do what you want to do, but it’s about what the client wants, not about you want. Always consider who’s going to determine if you will succeed, your client.
JT gave a hidden immunity idol to Russell on the opposing tribe, before the tribes merged, based on the fact that the other tribe had a woman’s alliance and Russell was about to be voted out. If it would have worked, it would have been a huge move. His “fact” was incorrect and Russell was actually in control. JT was voted out next.
2. Just because it makes sense inside your head, doesn’t mean it’s true. Check your facts before you make decisions.
Rupert told the tribe that Sandra had told him that Russell was in control. He wanted to overthrow Russell. The tribe didn’t believe Rupert because he had “been telling tales”.
3. Don’t tell tales. Always been honest with everything you say. If you exaggerate anything, you’ll lose credibility and won’t be able to convince people when you need to.
Rob had a fool proof plan to vote off Paravti, a huge threat. Everyone was on board and knew how to vote. Tyson did some of his own thinking at the last minute, made the wrong choice and ended up voting himself out.
4. If you have a well thought out plan, stick with it. Don’t make last minute changes because you think you have a better idea than the original plan. You don’t.
Rupert broke his toe in the first challenge, on the first day. After the game, they x-rayed it and he actually had 3 breaks on 2 toes. He never complained. If he had complained, he probably would have been voted out sooner, as a weak player.
5. If you have some hardship, something that makes your job difficult, don’t tell the client. Keep your mouth shut. Don’t complain, just get your job done. Keep working.
Russell took Sandra to the final 3, where she beat him. He thought that since she didn’t do a lot during the whole season, that the jury wouldn’t want to give her the money. He didn’t ask any of them what they thought beforehand. He didn’t build any relationships with them.
6. Don’t just imagine what your clients are thinking. Ask them. What do they want? How can you make them happy? What are they upset about? Build relationships with your clients so you know what they are thinking.
Russell thought that because he was the most aggressive player that he was the best. He had no idea that everyone hated him. To get the jury to vote for you in the end, they have to like you. The hard part of Survivor is voting people off and then getting them to give money at the end.
7. All the rational arguments in the world don’t matter when people are making decisions. People make decisions based on feelings and use the rational to justify their emotional decision. Tell the right story. Be a nice guy. Make people like you. It’s worth more than you think.
Colby was the ultimate hero when he first played the game. He still holds the record for winning the most personal immunity challenges in the history of the game. This season, he didn’t do so well. He lost every challenge he was in. People he was aligned with were voted out, one by one. As he tried to stay afloat in the game, everything he tried, failed. He struggled to the very end. He kept trying. He kept working, up until the day he was voted off. He made it farther than other 15 people.
8. No matter what happens to you, keep trying. Keep working. You never know what will happen. Sure failures don’t always fail. Never give up. There’s always hope.
Coach tried to be honorable while playing the game. At one point, Russell told him that he would take him to the end and Coach believed him. Coach is a good guy, but naive, an innocent lamb. He believed Russell would be honorable. Coach went home soon after.
9. Be careful of who you trust in business. Always be trustworthy yourself, but make sure that the people you are dealing with are also trustworthy, including your clients. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
Courtney made strong alliances and played well. She was horrible in the physical challenges, but built strong relationships with the members of her tribe. No matter what happened, she seemed to have a smile on her face. After getting voted off, she joined JT and Coach in a rock band. (Watch the music video below.) While in the jury, she was constantly laughing and making funny remarks.
10. No matter what happens, always have fun. Win, lose, or draw, keep a smile on your face and enjoy the ride.
Are you a Survivor fan? What did you learn from Survivor? Tell us in the comments. (We already know that Russell is the best/worst player in the world.)
A couple weeks ago, I asked which book I should write next. I was considering a book on Etsy specific marketing or a more general Internet Marketing book.
It will look nothing like this.
I offered a $10 discount coupon for anything in the walton.com store for anyone who responded. Those coupons have been sent, so if you answered the survey and didn’t get your code, send me an email and let me know.
Etsy has put a lot of people on the mailing list, so I figured that would be the clear winner, but there are people who have never heard of Etsy on the list.
There are also a surprising number of people who have Etsy shops, but are tired of the fees and lack of control, so they are looking for other ways to market their product.
The clear winner is the book on Internet Marketing.
It was split evenly between people who like “step by step” instructions and those who like “general principles”. I guess I’ll have to write it from both perspectives and do both!
I will be working on the book over the next couple weeks, so if you have any suggestions or specific questions you want addressed, please leave them in the comments below.
Find out how my site beat Wikipedia in Google. Even if you don't know anything about any of this web stuff, you can learn how to improve the ranking of your web site in the search engines.
This book is targeted at the very beginner, people who are not savvy about the web or the Internet. It explains it all, from the very basic, so you won't feel like you're in over your head.
The world has changed. The Internet is becoming a normal part of everyday life for a majority of people. With every new change in technology, comes the rise and fall of businesses as they try to adapt, from railroads to airplanes, from buggies to cars, from radio to TV, from vinyl records to CDs to MP3s.
If you need a web site that is attractive, easy to use, and it's easy to maintain, we can build that for you. Multiple features can be built in, including a shopping basket if you want to sell your products on the web. Read about our design services.
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Rhonda commented on How To Use Email To Make Money, Without Being A Jerk:
Great idea! I have a lot of digital products I can give away. My question is, if I have a product that I wanted feedback on, is it appropriate to email it for free and ask people to give feedback? Not sure I would get many who would bother to write back.
nancy monsebroten commented on How To Use Email To Make Money, Without Being A Jerk:
Nancy the potter here. In answer to your request for what things we want to hear from you...I just want to have you keep doing what you do! Your posts spark me to forge on! You bring up things that are in the back of my head but I had forgotten!
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Conrad Walton commented on How To Use Email To Make Money, Without Being A Jerk:
The easiest, most obvious is a digital document of some sort.
It has to be useful, something that tempts me to want it.
I would suggest a PDF file that's a special report of some sort.
Maybe "10 things to look for when buying handmade jewelry". "Buyers Guide to Handmade Jewelry". "8 reasons Handmade Jewelry
Mike Korner commented on I’m a unicorn!:
You are definitely a unicorn Conrad!
I like "my homies" but "Freedom Partners" might be better. What I mean is, by partnering, all parties get closer to freedom.
Most people focus on selling their product to people who are looking for their product. There are a lot of people in this world who don’t even know you exist, much less are looking for your product. 
