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Can you be an Internet marketing expert? Absolutely.
Internet marketing, unlike many skilled trades, surrounds each of us. We see good and we see lots of bad, but we can see it all. That’s really the ironic secrets–there are no secrets.
If you pick something anything that you buy online and systematically retrace your steps you learn the magic. Do that enough times and dissect others buying behavior around you and presto you will become an expert–assuming you do something with that research.
Otherwise, your just a researcher and better sign-on as an expert researcher somewhere.
Ready to get all expert-ed up?
1. Be a student of your own Internet behavior. I kind of already gave this one away. You are a great focus group of one. You have perfect information and you buy stuff online. Pay more attention to what is moving you to buy, where you are finding things to buy, and why you click on stuff.
One word of caution: You’re an Internet expert (no really you are more technically savvy than 90% of the market) making assumptions that is level can lose you a significant amount of sales.
2. More importantly, be a student of your family’s behavior. This statement goes to my cautionary warning above. Most online consumers are Internet novices. They use the Internet for very limited purposes. Lucky for Internet marketers, many of those limited purposes involve buying something.
The trick is learning (observing) what is obvious and compelling to this 90% of your buying audience. Watch your family navigate and click around on the Internet. Watch what distracts and attracts them. You will be amazed.
Carefully catalog things that drive your family members, of all ages, to buy. Add this experience to your Internet bag of tricks.
3. Observe what people do, everywhere. Don’t limit yourself to online marketing examples. Study offline marketing examples. Find out what makes them work and then bring them online for a clever (money-making) twist.
My favorite marketing lab: grocery stores.
- Watch people grab “deals” from the end-caps when better prices are in the aisles
- Watch people get “grabbed” by a juicy headline and toss a tabloid on the check-out
- Watch people buy more to get to a “discount” or “incentive” level
- Watch people grab items from a “limited offer” and nearly “scarce” shelf
Each one of those examples could be translated into an Internet marketing techniques: featured posts, subject line in an email, extra free stuff, sidebar lay-out, limited time offers, etc.
4. Learn to move people with words. Sure, video and audio are hot marketing topics, but the Internet is still built on a framework of words. Learning to motivate and drive eyeballs quickly down a page to an offer is THE most powerful marketing weapon!
Read Copyblogger daily, Join Third Tribe (affilitate link), or buy The Copywriter’s Handbook (affiliate link) by Robert Bly to accelerate your copywriting education immediately.
This critical skill goes beyond the traditional Internet landing page. Mastering a reasonable level of copywriting will improve your marketing performance in any facet of Internet marketing you attempt–email, SEO, PPC, affiliate, video, podcasting, keep going…
5. Value people’s time and relationship. This is an Internet marketing lesson for which I have an increasingly strong appreciation–value people. That means honoring the time they give you and the relationship they entrust you with.
What does that mean? I think it means not say things, endorsing things, or producing things just to have something to sell. Put some serious time and thought in what you offer your audience.
- If you have nothing to say today, be silent
- If you have nothing to sell or endorse, don’t sell (have a good conversation)
- If your service or product isn’t ready, working on it (don’t fall into oblivion here–see 10)
6. Learn to ask people for money. Holy cow! This took me forever to learn. I would write, teach, evangelize, but I never asked anyone to do anything. You know what happens when you do that?
People get bored and leave. I’m serious.
Communities (even offline) come together to do things. People rally around causes and initiatives. Products and services are no less than this online. If you make or do a good thing ask people to pay you.
They get it. They will. And, if it’s good they will do it over and over again.
But, if you don’t ask them to buy it and you don’t ask them to tell others what they think they have a million other things pressing their attention–they won’t. Ask your community or audience to do something. Try, buy, promote, something, anything. Don’t bore them to apathy.
7. Become a guinea pig. Remember I told you about all the Internet marketing happening around you? This is your best teacher. Throw yourself into the marketing till.
Find people who do it right and become a consumer, prospect, customer of theirs. Then take very careful notes.
Want an Internet marketing MBA? Throw yourself into one of these folks marketing campaigns:
- Frank Kerns
- Brian Clark
- Chris Brogan
- Jim Kukral
- Darren Rouse
- Sonia Simone
- Jeff Walker
- John Chow
- Jeremy Shoemaker
Take very careful notes. Don’t get overwhelmed. Try only one little trick at a time.
Don’t just read their blogs. Get in their marketing campaigns. Get on their email lists. Then sit back and learn. One more observation. Notice how many are using email marketing and campaigns. There may be a secret here.
8. Try something! This is the best advice anyone can give you to achieve Internet marketing guru status. Try something. Don’t worry if it’s small.
Let me be very specific here. Yesterday, I was on Third Tribe and one of the members had done just this. She built an email list of 100 people. She created a 20-page eBook. She created a email campaign (yes, to a list of only 100 people). The campaign converted 23 of those subscribers into eBook buyers at about $10 a sale.
She made around $230. What a huge success! She’s an expert.
She has outperformed a huge percentage of Internet marketers and 100% of all the people that want to be Internet marketers.
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About Bill Rice