Internet Marketing ladder: one step closer to the top

photo: Josh McMillan

Getting there, one step at a time. Finally got my refund today, and a friend said he wanted to take over the Internet Scam site - so I'll now be free to simply concentrate on streamlining and publishing what I know about Internet marketing.

One interesting point which has come to light just over the last 24 hours is that most of promotion is link-building. And while this is still a great majority of what you have to do in Internet Marketing, it gives us structure to what has to be done.

My take on this is going to fill about a dozen sites on the same host, with a dozen books, a dozen email courses, and a dozen CD's/DVD's filled with videos (as well as online).

If you've been following this blog intently, you may have noticed some data going up and then coming down again. I'll be able to explain this more thoroughly in these books, since now I've lived through and refined what can happen to a person when they make certain promotional steps. And more of what needs to be done to ensure these are properly effective.

This, of course, isn't the last of this - since the Internet itself is evolving and so are the lessons we learn daily as we go.

One of the more interesting mentors I've been working to catch up with recently is Charles Heflin. He's from a ThemeZoom SEO background, so is thoroughly engaged with real-world studies on what is effective site-building. As well, he is very active in the social media scene and can tell you exactly how to build an effective social network that really brings home the bacon.

While I've got a desk full of notes on this area, I'll start sorting and weeding these through tomorrow. Don't know if these will result in posts or not - since some of it is so esoteric to be nearly gobbledegook until it's all sorted through and aligned.

As well, I have to research the keywords and competition for 12 different sites in order to present them in a fashion that will be effective and useful.

One immediate spin-off is that I'll be able to do a sort of "Chicken Soup" transmorgrification, making it possible for this data to be used by all sorts of niches from small organic farmers to Fortune 500 companies, from WAHM's to Boomers - and everyone inbetween. If my heart were in it, I could spend the rest of my life just marketing this to all the various niches which need to be on the Internet to expand their own product offerings.

My work in this is to actually just perfect the marketing channel itself, so that I can move into a much tougher set of niches to crack - personal improvement.

And there are some trees beyond that section of forest as well.

I imagine that I'll be adding to this area as I find more about what happens after - particularly in building a subscription site. (Internet marketing has plenty of velvet rope areas already, so I won't bother in this one - too much inane competition. I've got bigger fish which create far more impressive changes for this planet than simply making tons of money.)

But I wanted to keep you up to date.

And if you haven't, subscribe to this blog as it will be an outlier promotion line for this new baker's dozen of products coming out. You won't want to miss this insight as I dissect the basics and show how simple it is for anyone to do this - and why most people don't...

Marketing Insight: Keywords which don't tell you anything about the Gorilla in the room

(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/arcticpuppy/)

Marketing Insight: Not getting the right keywords
won't tell you anything about the gorilla in your room.

That's the problem with a lot of these niches we deal with. When we are simply trying to sell a product, we fail because some of these niches simply don't have buyers in them. And worse, some people are telling you that the way you find buyers is to see if people are advertising in that area. (Really? How come people are advertising where there isn't even any traffic? Google says they do - just look on their Adwords tool and see where there is "competition" even when there aren't enough traffic results to make up a monthly tally...)

Since I got myself all worked up with that (above-linked) post, I then had to see what was actually going on.

So I set up my Keywords Genies: Google Adwords Tool and RankTracker and started to get to work figuring this all out. I started using Google Adwords to see if it would give me bigger and bigger traffic keywords through its synonyms. After I amassed about 12,000 keywords, then I quit to digest them by OpenOffice database.

Now, this is completely the reverse of what my research says to do. I was purposely looking for stuff that couldn't possibly be a niche - waaayy too big. Of course, one of the first things I found out was that Google and WordTracker don't agree on what the traffic for something actually is. (Big surprise - all these tools only deal with their own estimates of traffic. Your mileage may vary, as well - only your own analytics knows for sure.)

But what I did find is that there seem to be a huge number of really good one and two-word keywords with decent KEI. Even though they could (and some did) have literally a trillion pages of competition. No, you couldn't dream of trying to get these on their own. So the niche theory of marketing empire-building still holds.

The review of these niches and their main keywords started showing something else (other than the fact I was really straining RankTracker and WordTracker - you can only check about 240 KW's at a time before WordTracker shuts you down). That something else was the point that people who search on Google are just that - lookers. Doesn't mean they are buyers. And you have to check that keyword on eBay or Amazon to see if people are actually able to sell something like that.

Even more striking was the observation that very little "stuff" was turning up with these keywords. Specific camera's, or toys, or gadgets or books or authors weren't coming up. But the big-ticket Maslow-pyramid-type phrases were. As niches.

But didn't I just say you couldn't sell anything in a niche that didn't have buyers in it?

Sure. The trick is that the motivations to buy are there, not the stuff you can sell.

This means that people are actually searching for their wants and feelings, not just specific stuff they want to buy - although that happens as well, but not in two words or less (most of the time, anyway).

Your niches show up in four-word or longer phrases.

But something even more interesting showed up - you aren't selling stuff, you're offering solutions.

All of these wants and feelings people put in their search engine forms - these are just problems they are having in their lives (more or less). What they are plugging away at searching for are solutions which would improve their lives.

Again, go back to Maslow and Cialdini. When you take these two giants together, you see what people as individuals and as groups/niches are trying to solve in their lives. All these things people buy are somewhere on Maslow's pyramid. And what you see selling on eBay or Amazon are translations of these items into the tribe-dominated Cialdini 6 (or 7) principle triggers.

Being blonde, young, trim, athletic, rich, famous, etc. - all of these have definite products associated with them. But below all these states are very definite wants and needs - and between those and the products that represent them are the person's feelings. Which are what all sales are based on - feelings.

My point in this actually goes back to what I've spend the bulk of this life on - personal improvement and self-growth. Recently, I've been studying marketing to see how selling this type stuff is done. And so, now I know how to sell almost anything - find out what stresses are hitting people's lines and offer solutions. Stresses are tied into feelings - and they come from a person's purpose, something seemingly disrelated to marketing.

The reason I'm telling you all this is to keep you up to speed with what I've been discovering.

Practically, with proper market research, starting with keywords and then finding what products are selling in that niche - you could conceivably sell sun-tan oil to Eskimo's if you wanted.

It's all sitting there in the keywords.

So, go ahead, compile your own list of 12,000 Google Adwords and see what comes up.

May you be just as pleasantly surprised.

Keyword Research Marketing Insight - Don't think the inmates know how to unlock the sanitarium gates...

(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amagill/)

Marketing Insight:
Escaping the sanitarium profitably with your keywords
-- don't ask the inmates for directions.

Sometimes I get fed up with people who use advertising as proof that people are buying or not buying stuff in any particular niche.

I've been doing a heckuva lot of research on keywords recently and can tell you this - advertiser are generally clueless about what people are going to buy. And they are caught up in this insane addiction to buying advertising as a way to get leads which will convert to paying customers.

The reason I say this is I've pulled in my Ranktracker files from Google adwords KeywordExternalTool and found that there are some fascinating keywords being used that have a lot of advertising competition, but no one is actually visiting these sites. True.

Now, this doesn't say all advertisers are this way - but when I've now run into the fourth or fifth "authority" saying that you look at these sites which tell you what advertising is being bought as an indicator of whether people are buying products in that area - and I say "BULL".

If you want to see if people are buying that product, check out eBay with one of the free analysis tools out there. This will tell you if there is a real buying market for it. Now, eBay is a bit different from Google, as people who are looking (google) aren't necessarily buyers (google and ebay). But if you use Terapeak, you can see over the last two weeks (for free) if anyone is looking for a product in your category and what types of products (and prices) they are willing to pay in an auction. (One caveat - auctions are for 1] Collectors, and 2] Bargain Hunters. So prices are unreal here - both too high and too low.)

Right now, I don't know of any other area where you can find out actual sales data. You want to be able to look at the records of buyers buying. Terapeak and HammerTap both license eBay's database records to generate their data. Another source would be WorldWideBrands - even though their entry is rather high, even for a lifetime subscription. But they can tell you the rough value of an area and whether there are buyers for that product. WWB does have an online trial where you can check out your keywords in a limited degree.

Oh - but you could check out Clickbank, which does (in a round-about way) give what is selling and you can work out roughly whether you could actually make money at that stuff. Also has return rates (as some of those digital products aren't worth the digital paper they're printed on...)

But when someone tells you to see if people are advertising as an idea of who's buying what - just smile and nod and thank them - then go right on by. Because those people are probably going to be there for a very loooong time. And you should be out in the real world earning money by the carloads.

So:
Places to find out if someone is actually buying products for your niche:

• Terapeak
• WorldWideBrands
• Clickbank.

Good Hunting!

Small Business Marketing Insight Tip: Keyword Article-writing tool - OpenOffice

Small Business Marketing Insight Tip:

Writing articles while keeping your keywords in mind just got easier.

Now, as you know from following this series of blog posts, I'm a big fan of using RankTracker to compile a spreadsheet of keywords - then mining that spreadsheet with a database.

Then you write your articles keeping those keywords in mind. And you can do this all from OpenOffice.

I used to keep a list of keywords to hand, and then started keeping a spreadsheet open on a second monitor while I wrote my articles on my main one. What I found out today is that you can search your database in the same window while you have your article open - saving desktop real estate. Look at this partial screen capture:

(image opens to larger version)

The database is opened up above your editing window, so you can see the keywords you've already culled from your RankTracker research. In this case, I'm working on a series of articles on telemarketing - and you can see the highlighted keyword "telemarketer training" right above the article with that keyword in it's title. Note that it's all in the same window.

Makes it easier to see what you're talking about. Now, if you have multiple databases, they'll show up there as well (right now, I only have the "refund02a" database registered, but more will be coming, rest assured). So you can switch easily from one to the other to find the cross-keywords you need, which helps you out with your Latent Semantic Indexing.

As you update your spreadsheet on a regular basis, that keeps your database current, so when you are writing articles, you can tweak them however your research sends you.

A probable sequence on this would be to

• set out your categories according to your research,
• pile all of these into one massive spreadsheet and then
• set up multiple queries so that OpenOffice Base can do your heavy lifting.
• Then, set your categories in your WordPress blog to align with your keywords.
• Once you have all this, then you simply set your publishing schedule to account for holiday cycles and start sending content to social media about the niche products you are offering and so take over top search engine positions.
  

Follow your publishing schedule and then it's downhill for your work, and uphill for your sales and bank account.

Just wanted to keep you up to date on the latest and greatest - make us both more efficient that way, eh?

Good Hunting!

PS. Coming soon: How to break into Google Analytics without breaking a sweat - a newbie's guide.

Marketing Insight: Hype Curve, Bell Curve, and Long Tail - how to profit regardless of the economic downturn

Marketing Insight: Where Hype Rubber Hits the Laggard Road

I've recently been proving all those Madison Avenue psych studies right. By studying Cialdini, Gladwell, and Godin it pretty much says that we are actually being herded along in our tribes quite nicely. Of course my secret weapon in this is to study Maslow and then see that these tribes are far from being destructive, but are actually heading toward a better future quality of life for all members.

Madison Avenue has been helping, in their odd way, to enable people to spend their way to a better material quality of living. To do this, they need to keep earning more money than they have before. And people get sold on getting their kids through college (another tribe grist-mill) and living better lives.

Our use of this, of course, is to learn not to become effect of every marketing frenzy that comes along - and to re-learn our own mental habits so that we can make our own independent decisions. But meanwhile, as we become the lighthouse on the rocky shore for other ships passing through this storm we call life - we have to use these data to help people find our routes to success. Not that they have to follow it exactly - you just want people to be able to find it and utilize it. And if they become independent thinkers as well - hey, we might wind up with a huge tribe of people who care for each other and do the right thing more instinctively. Better for all of us on this small single world we share.

OK, today I wanted to tell you more about this tribe stuff and some fascinating explanations of what we go through.

Gartner's Hype Cycle, Bridging the Gap, and Fads Vs. Evolution

First off, there's Gartner's hype cycle - which of course is full of hype. But it tells us that not everything is a fad. Somethings make their way into society and do quite nicely after they are widely adopted. Beany Babies aren't one. Fire and the Wheel apparently are.

Someone else approached the same concept of technology adoption and talks about Bridging the Gap for early adopters, using the Bell Curve to show where early adopters, mainstreamers, and laggards show up. Unfortunately, this model only says that demand dies out for every new adoption.

A really bright lad made a great point over at Trashmarketing when he superimposed the two graphs. Not all of his arguments follow, but it's a great start.

He opines that hype is much greater during the early adopters phase and that the chatter drops off as the mainstreaming begins.

Gartner is talking about technology and adoption curves. Use of the bell curve and this gap theory is fine for fads - but says that people won't continue using an item.

I think that we are somewhere in the middle of these two curves. (And you'll see that the Long Tail curve also is represented there - if you look closely around "Late Majority and Laggards')

But you'll see what I mean when you look at Detroit's growth and decline. Compare the Edsel and the Mustang and you can see where Ford missed the boat and made it. Social media is going through this same scene, as some platforms are bought up and drop off. Practically, Nasdaq and our current real-estate economy bubble burst (thanks to Bill Clinton, Barney Franks, ACORN and Chris Dodd for our US version) show this same hype curve to some degree. At least for now.

And technology stocks as well as real-estate will always be with us - much as Jesus talked about the poor. So there is some combination of these to start making sense out of things. Sure, the hoop skirt never caught on, but the mini-skirt is still around - just not as hyped as before (but just as enticing to males).

How do we use this? Realize that your marketing efforts have to be way out ahead of everyone else. What you are looking for are early adopter evangelists and "sneezers" (per Gladwell's Tipping Point) in order to help your product get critical mass. And be prepared for that Dip (Godin wrote a book about it - which I haven't read).

But you are wanting to keep true to your main, core idea and purpose - both of yourself and of your business. You are there, actually, to help move society and this culture forward - to help it evolve. Don't worry if your company and product get snapped up and incorporated into some behemoth current juggernaut. Turn it over and start your next one - you've now got your own financing as that startup just went mainstream. Time for your next startup.

The main point is to keep on keeping on. Don't listen to the Joneses - but figure out what they really need next and offer them a better solution than the one they have. Like the fries at MacDonald's which formed the basis for a world-wide trend in fast-food. Or that entrepreneur who found out that selling everything for a little less made a lot more profit - Sam Walton created a very recession-proof business which has improved the lives of millions through his ideas like spoke-and-wheel distribution.

So: the sky is no limit, actually. Just get out there and create your tail off. Learn from the best and do better than them. With what we can now know in this Internet Age, anyone can retire several times over after creating their booms, not bubbles.

Related articles

• Nobody likes the bell curve
• How about a (more) profitable online business?!?
• The hype of Affilate Marketing can grow on you - in time...
• Strategic Internet Marketing - key to sanity and profits
• Thrivelearning System - Online Business, Spiritual Training - Guide & Introduction
• Letting Go and Letting God - Explained

Marketing Insight Tip #2 - Getting people to register for their free downloads

(photo credit: danielbroche)
Getting People to Register for their Free Downloads

This just hit me like the proverbial brick. Problem with free downloads is the amount of bandwidth they take - and there isn't usually any return for these. Not monetarily, anyway. And let's face it, we are in the business of offering valuable solutions to problems that they will give something valuable in return... Usually, this is money, but it can also be something like - an email address.

Now a person will usually give away something to get an email address, and then will spend extra to deliver an email series to that address, with the idea of offering them materials which they will then purchase.

While writing a new small business marketing series, I found myself with a ton of great ebooks which can only be given away. Now if I just put these on my website, I'd probably have that link given away to all sorts of people - who I don't know and can't contact except by the IP address they used.

The simple solution is to put them on your ecommerce engine as a free download. My ZenCart installation requires they give their email address in order to login. Voila! Exchange has occurred. And I'd really like them to give that address away to any of their friends, wouldn't I? Meanwhile, they are also ableto simply look around and see if there is anything else they like.

Of course, even a free ebook will get a review on my blog - and that review also return links to that product page, doesn't it? Linklove - can't beat it.

And now you have, in those short paragraphs above, a simple way to invest in free downloads.

(ZenCart also has a nice newsletter email function, though I have to check it out more... One complaint about email could shut down your server. So I'll stick to exporting these addresses and offering them an opt-in via my GetResponse autoresponder.)

- - - -

Any better ideas? Let me know. The comment space is open to all (who register, of course.) ;P

Cheers!