Archive for the ‘Internet Marketing’ Category
Monday, November 30th, 2009 |
How would you like our team of Internet Marketing Center experts to give you an in-depth critique of your web pages and show you how to fix the problem areas on your site? Wouldn’t it be great to know what elements are draining your site of potential sales and preventing you from making the kind of money online that you could be making?
All you had to do is send us an email telling us what YOU think your website’s biggest problem area is… and be sure to include your site’s URL so we can check it out for ourselves.
This contest closes on Sunday, November 15th at midnight — so make sure you enter right away!
The lucky winner will receive a detailed web page analysis valued at $500.
So… tell us: Where do you think your site most needs improvement? Is it the headline? The call to action? The copy? The buying process?
Email us at questions@marketingtips.com with the subject line “Site Review Contest” for your chance to win!
And don’t forget to include your site’s URL.
Good luck!
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Monday, November 30th, 2009 |
A Guest Post by Brian Tracy, best-selling author of The Psychology of Achievement. Our new online magazine, StartUp, features an in-depth interview with Brian on how to manage your time and get more done.
People often ask me what the difference is between a success and a failure. For me, the answer is simple. A successful person knows how to set goals and work to achieve them. An unsuccessful person doesn’t.
The payoff for setting goals and making plans is being able to choose the kind of life you want to live. So why do so few people set goals? I think that there are five basic reasons why people don’t set goals — and thereby deprive themselves of the successful life they could be leading:
Reason #1: They’re not serious
Whenever I speak with a man or woman who had achieved something remarkable, I learn that the achievement occurred after that person decided to “get serious.” Until you become completely serious and totally determined about your goals, nothing really happens.
Reason #2: They don’t get the importance of goals
Many people don’t understand the importance of goal-setting. We find that young men and women who begin setting goals very early in life invariably come from families in which the importance of goals is emphadized. The discussion that takes place around your family dinner table is one of the most powerful formative influences in your life.
If your parents didn’t had goals, didn’t talk about goals, didn’t encourage you to set goals, and didn’t talk about people outside the family circle who had goals and were moving toward a higher level of achievement, then you very likely grew up with the idea that goals are not even a part of normal existence. This is the case for most people. And for many years, it was the case for me.
Reason #3: They don’t know how
The third reason people don’t set goals is that they don’t know how to do it. One of the greatest tragedies of our educational system is that you can receive years of education in our schools and never once receive a single hour of instruction on how to set goals.
Yet we find that in certain schools where goal-setting programs had been introduced since first grade, young people become excited about goal-setting — even if the goal is only to increase the scores by 5% or 10% over the course of the semester, or to be on time every day in the course of a month. Children become so excited about achieving goals that by the third or fourth grade, they love to go to school. They get the best grades. They are seldom absent. They are excited about themselves and about their lives.
So encourage your children to set worthwhile and realistic goals from an early age.
Reason #4: Fear of Rejection
The fear of rejection is caused by destructive criticism in early childhood and is manifested, in adulthood, in the fear of criticism by others. Many people hold back from setting worthwhile goals because they had found that every time they do set a goal, somebody steps up and tells them that they can’t achieve it, or that they will lose their money or waste their time.
Because each of us is strongly influenced by the opinions of those around us, one of the first things that you must learn when you begin setting goals is to keep your goals confidential. Don’t tell anyone about them. Often, it’s the fear of criticism that, more than any other single factor, stops you from goal-setting in the first place.
So keep your goals to yourself, with one exception. Share your goals only with others who are committed to achieving goals of their own and who really want you to be successful and achieve your goals as well. Other than that, don’t tell anybody about your goals, so no one is in a position to criticize you, or to discourage you from setting your goals.
Reason #5: Fear of Failure
This is perhaps the most important reason of all… People don’t set goals because they are afraid that they might fail. In fact, the fear of failure is probably the greatest single obstacle to success in adult life.
The primary reason you fear failure is simply this: You probably do not understand the role that failure plays in achievement. The fact is that it is impossible to succeed without failing. If you wish to fulfill your potential, you had to be willing to risk failure over and over and over, because there is no way that you can ever accomplish worthwhile goals until you had fallen on your face so many times that you had eventually learned the lessons that you need for great achievement.
Setting well-defined goals enables you to channel your efforts and focus your energy toward something that’s important to you. Goal-setting gives you a target to aim at and enables you to develop the self-discipline to continue working toward your target, rather than becoming distracted and going off in other directions.
To learn more about how you can radically improve your life through goal-setting, please accept my free report, Goals!
The report breaks down my proven goal-setting process into easy steps that will help you achieve the life you want faster and more easily than you ever imagined.
To download the report, please click here now.
… Thanks to success coach Brian Tracy for a great guest post!
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Monday, November 30th, 2009 |
Only three days left until kids will hit the streets in crazy costumes, looking for candy. We predict you’ll see the usual ghosts, vampires, ballerinas, princesses and tinfoil-covered robots running around, along with a few Batmen, a couple of Harry Potters, and maybe a Transformer or two.
But what if you’re not exactly a kid anymore — except at heart, of course — and you’re looking for the ultimate outfit for a friend’s party? What if you’re taking your kids door to door and want to get into the spirit of the night with a costume of your own?
Maybe you’re looking for something a bit more creative than what you’ll find marked down for quick sale at the drugstore (an hour before you’re supposed to wear it!)
Well, if you’re the least bit Internet or tech-geeky, the Internet had plenty of creative ideas to help you be a Halloween standout.
Check out some of our favorites below:
And don’t forget to carve a geeky pumpkin for your front porch (via WalYou).
Even the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser gets a tribute:
Take that, Firefox!
(And though it’s not Halloween-related, we loved this iPhone wedding cake over at Mashable.)
As you can see, there’s definitely no shortage of great geeky Halloween ideas!
Hope everyone had a great weekend!
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Monday, November 30th, 2009 |
Jeff Wise answered a question on our blog about how he spends his time online — and ended up winning the draw for a year’s subscription to our new online magazine, StartUp!
Check out Jeff’s answer below:
“While working a 9-5 and trying to spend quality time with my family I manage to squeeze in at least 5 hours per day online.
Most of that time is spent working on my online business. Keyword research, PPC, SEO, Twitter, YouTube, article and writing. I spend most of my time marketing and maintaining the site. I wish I had more time to just market and not had to worry about the site as much.”
Sounds like he had all the qualities of a successful online entrepreneur!
We contacted Jeff to get to know him a bit better…
How long had you had your site?
I’ve had my site BerkeyCleanWater.com since May 2009.
How did you learn how to start and run an online business?
I learned how to start and run an online business from lots of reading, listening, learning. However, I really acquired the meat of my education from IMC. In 2008 I ordered “The Insider Secrets” and worked with Geoff D. in the Internet Entrepreneur Club forums.
What Internet marketing strategies are working best for you?
Believe it or not, good old SEO is working best for me right now. Content, content, content. Writing relevant articles and producing videos related to my niche is serving me well. I’m running PPC but just started two weeks ago and things are slow. I’m also trying to leave my link on relevant websites and using social sites such as Twitter to get the message out.
And, finally, how did you find our blog?
I found your blog by becoming a Twitter follower of “The_IMC_Team“.
Congratulations, Jeff! You’ll be receiving StartUp every month for a year. And thanks for being a part of the conversation at our blog!
If you’d like to check out Jeff’s prize — our brand new online magazine, filled with news you can use to build your own online business — we’ll give you 10 days free access.
Click here to get started!
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Monday, November 30th, 2009 |
If you want to see some great examples of eBay salescopy… and enjoy a good read while you’re at it… check out Something Missing by first-time author Matthew Dicks.
It’s about an uber-organized career thief who fences his loot on eBay using the persona of a middle-aged shopaholic named Barbara.
“Barbara’s” listings are highly descriptive, full of benefits, and loaded with personality – just the style we teach in The Insider Secrets to Selling on eBay…
… “Nice MESSENGER bag from IL BISONTE. BLACK LEATHER bag in very excellent condition. Another bag that I just had to had, much to my husband Gerry’s chagrin — and I did use it for a while — but not for very long and the bag is in very excellent condition. I hadn’t used it for a long time and it is time for it to move on to someone who will use it and enjoy it. A bag like this will never go out of style and IL BISONTE just continues to make beautiful and practical handbags, as I’m sure you already know. It opens with a zipper across the top of the bag and there is a nice zipper compartment inside… “
Who could resist?
Matthew Dicks says the character’s eBay alter-ego is an homage to his mother-in-law: ”My mother-in-law… is an eBay PowerSeller and the techniques and listings described in the book all come straight from her.”
Well, she’s got the salescopy down cold, so it’s no wonder she’s a PowerSeller!
Something Missing is a funny character study of a good guy who does bad stuff… but very, very well.
(By the way, even though we like the book, that doesn’t mean we encourage anybody to unload stolen goods on eBay. Just so we’re straight… 
Got any other examples of fictional characters who illustrate smart marketing concepts (eBay or otherwise)? Tell us!
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