3 Essentials to Effective Internet Marketing
Internet marketing is the new gold rush in the commercial world. And it’s not just big businesses that are whole-heartedly embracing online avenues, small businesses and even single-person entrepreneurs and freelancers now view the Internet as the de facto method for sales growth, exposure, and blog allegiance. Here are a few ground rules for responsible and effective Internet marketing:
Use affiliate marketing smartly.
Don’t litter your blog with hundreds of affiliate links and then get shocked when your readers are turned off. Pick and choose your affiliates carefully, as you would colleagues or partners in any kind of business environment. When you align yourself with an online merchant, you’re in a sense tying your reputation to theirs. If you’re against synthetic chemical-laden manufacturing, for example, and you’re considering affiliate links from companies who manufacture custom water bottles, make sure the company you endorse produces polycarbonate alternative bottles. The point is to make your links consistent, credible, and ethical. Nothing will destroy your credibility quicker than completely selling out your principles over a single affiliate.
Don’t be too repetitious.
Obviously, aggressive marketing requires certain levels of redundancy. How many times have you seen a company tweet the release of a new product a thousand different ways? Or send out multiple email newsletters in a single week? But don’t keep posting the exact same link to your Kickstarter page over and over again with no new information. This just makes you seem either desperate, dense, or dim-witted, depending on who your friends are. Always provide new information or a new context when reposting your own link.
Utilize several different platforms.
If you’re stuck on just Twitter or just Facebook you’re missing the point of social media. It’s not about one application, it’s about the totality of social media sites sharing, integrating and working together with powerful Internet tools like SEO. If you’re releasing a new project combine crowdfunding, viral video on YouTube, microblogging, podcasting, Fan Pages and whatever else you can think of. A successful Internet marketing campaign is rarely relegated to a single site. Diversify your portfolio, so to speak.
Do you consider yourself a self-promoter, a marketer, an advertiser? If the answer is yes, then you’ve probably dabbled in Internet marketing and will do so again in the future. Make sure you’re representing yourself and your brand effectively without being seen as distasteful, spammy, or tedious.
Read MoreUnlocking Your Future – the Key to Working from Home
Guest Post by James Martell
In my dad’s day, a businessman commuted from the suburbs to the office for hours each week, often traveling on business trips to meet with clients or suppliers, and spent more time away from home than he ever did with his family. Those days are disappearing, and it’s time to embrace a new normal.
Blast from the past
Back in 1998, when I first started understanding how the internet would be the future of business, everyone was a bit leery of it. When I did my first promotion for a company in the United States, everybody thought it was crazy for a Canadian like me to do business with someone from another country, not to mention someone I had never even met. I must admit I had my own doubts about it, but they were all laid to rest when the first check cleared the bank.
Today’s Information Age
Flash forward twelve years and the internet is the way we all do business, so why are so many of us still leaving our homes and families to punch a time clock in an office? Working from home is the key to your freedom and happiness; you just have to follow some simple guidelines and success can be yours.
Create your own space
Start by creating your own work space. Working from home is great, because it allows you the freedom to manage your own time and do with it what matters most, but you can’t treat your work time like home time. Creating a separate space to be your work area is essential, and allows you to mentally focus on your work, as well as keep things organized.
Some people I’ve talked to prefer to create their own office, complete with a nice home office computer desk and filing cabinets. Others prefer to make a section in their garage or a corner of the bedroom their work area. However much space you need, or the tools you require, just make sure it is a space that is all your own, and dedicated solely to your work. No setting up on half the kitchen the table and pretending you can eat dinner around it or the kids won’t scatter it. It just doesn’t work!
Social marketing
Use the internet to work for you. It’s important to realize that there’s a lot of competition out there these days, and you’ll need more going for you than just a well written landing page if you’re going to be a success. You’re going to have to make what you’re offering look appealing to the consumer and convince them that others think it has value too. Whatever you’re selling, whether it’s a product or a service, one of the best ways to sell it is with social marketing.
Just as our parents turned to the yellow pages or watched ads on TV, today everybody goes to search engines like Google when they want or need something. It’s the first place many of us get our information now.
When we want to know if the information we gathered from the web is credible, we rely on people we know for endorsements. The power of word of mouth has grown immeasurably since the advent of Facebook and Twitter. Millions of consumers are turning to these resources before making purchases and more and more of us are doing the actual buying or ordering on the internet as well. I’m sure you’ve found this to be true in your own life just as I have. These are great tools that you can use to your advantage. By getting people to talk about your product or service and consumers will seek you out.
Tools of tomorrow, here today
If all this sounds like a lot of work, just remember, you don’t have to do it all alone. Working from home isn’t for hermits or the antisocial. Thanks to today’s technology, it is as vibrant and active and social as you want to make it.
- Increase knowledge and education with webinars.
- Bring the boardroom right into your home by holding meetings and networking with them through business video conferencing or Skype.
- Utilize smart phone apps or laptops to access everything you need anywhere you go.
Do all the things you want to do with your life, and still have the access to handle all your business needs and communicate with the people you need to accomplish it all. Social networking is first and foremost about keeping social as much as you can.
Follow these guidelines and you’ll be on the path to success, and free to enjoy it when you achieve it. Your future is just waiting for you.
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James Martell, author of the Affiliate Marketers Handbook works from his home office computer desk teaching others how to make money with affiliate programs utilizing powerful tools like business video conferencing.
Read MoreAffiliate Marketing Fanatics #59: A Gateway Conference
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A couple of hyper-caffeinated affiliate marketers (Mike Buechele) and (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more!
Mike and I jump back into the saddle with this whole podcasting thing. We talk briefly about how great Affiliate Summit West 2012 was, get off track in some places, and try to get the innocent kids in the Midwest hooked on some affiliate marketing conference goodness. In in this episode we discuss:
- Affiliate Summit Central – a gateway conference to bigger conferences.
- Speculation about the night life of Austin, TX.
- Anybody using Pinterest? Thread on the Affiliate Summit Forum
- The Story of Skimlinks and Pinterest by Shawn Collins
- Pinterest “Pin It” Button WordPress Plugin
- 0% of Affiliate Marketers are Female. Say whaa? The rebutted 10 Great Women of Affiliate Marketing
- Some chatter about the Affiliate Summit Meetups in NY and SF
Find us on Twitter: @AMF_Podcast, @MikeBuechele & @TrishaLyn. Like us on Facebook! Be old fashioned and just leave us a comment!
Special thanks to GeekCast.fm for hosting Affiliate Marketing Fanatics!
Read MoreBlogging for Geniuses
Sometimes the element of blogging that holds people back the most is over-thinking their blogs. That’s why this post is entitled “Blogging for Geniuses” as opposed to ‘dummies.’ Many companies will engage in paid search management or marketing analysis to determine what topics to blog about on their corporate web pages. But for individuals looking to get their voices out into the blogosphere, sometimes the easiest way to get started is to shoot from the hip and write from the heart. Here are some practical tips for the wayward blogger to get started, or to augment their productivity and blog performance:
Don’t tackle subjects that are beyond your area of expertise.
Most any subject you can think of will be covered six ways to Sunday by people who probably know the facts a little better than you. Stick to topics that you know about from experience. It will imbue your posts with an air of authenticity that speaks to Internet readers who are already inundated with duplicate material on a daily basis. Be sure to include links to the articles from your research, especially if they’re from sites with a high page rank.
Research before you write.
Even though you should blog from the heart, you still want to have your facts straight. It’s also good to be able to bring interesting historical perspectives to contemporary issues. Research is the best way to fact-check your blogs and give them original angles.
Use keywords to make sure your blog is optimized for search engines.
Keywords are excellent for SEO, as they give weight to your blog in popular search engine results, and they also help you to keep your writing focused. Blogging is not rocket science, nor is it brain surgery, but it is a powerful Internet tool. Combined with email marketing, SEO on your blog can earn you cash, prestige, and a loyal readership.
Use social media to promote your blog.
Once the writing on your blog is focused, it’s time to focus your blog as a whole by getting it into niche corners of the Internet. The best way to do this is with social media sites like Twitter and Reddit. They allow you to highlight links to your blog among relevant readers. Plus, you can have your blog shared, reTweeted, and listed by others.
Blogging is not exactly an art form—or rocket science—but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some complex tasks you must face when you get going. Many of the tasks involve writing in such a way so as to connect with your audience. Focusing your subjects, researching your topics, using appropriate keywords, and promoting with social media are the right ways to enter the blogosphere.
Read MoreAnd the Winner Is… Sunshine Rewards!
I’m pleased to announce the winner of our custom sticker run contest. Huge thanks to all who took the time to enter! If any one would like one of my nifty Blinkstar Media stickers, feel free to ask. The contest winner was selected by the team at Sticker Giant, the sponsor of the contest and provider of the free set of custom stickers.
One of my favorite people, the “other Tricia” as I we call each other, Tricia Meyer leads a loyal community of savers at Sunshine Rewards and blogs about her experiences in affiliate marketing at Tricia.me. Tricia’s entry caught the judges eye and she is the winner of the contest! Tricia has an infectiously positive personality, and it’s always my pleasure to chat with her at various affiliate events.
Congratulations Tricia! We’ll be contacting you soon for instructions on how to redeem your custom run of stickers, courtesy of StickerGiant.com! Be sure to pop one in the mail for me when you get them!
Read MoreAwesome Custom Stickers for the Masses
I love stickers. As a child, I admit, I had those awesome Paul Frank sticker albums full of puffy stickers and scratch-n-sniffs. Growing up with a somewhat unique name like Trisha, I’ve always been a big proponent of self-expression, uniqueness, and customization. As a result, I customize EVERYTHING… I even dropped the $50 on the pretty purple ‘lid’ for my new Dell 🙂 So I love the idea of completely customized stickers to throw around to promote my personal sites. I loved the excellent quality laptop-friendly stickers we had made from StickerGiant for our Get Noticed Fast panel a few years ago at Affiliate Summit East 2009, which solidified my status of “big fan” of StickerGiant.com, specifically.
StickerGiant is celebrating 12 years in business and wants to spread the love by giving one lucky of our blog readers a free custom sticker print job. If you haven’t heard of StickerGiant, you should, these folks are easy to get a hold of, they are super quick, have really high quality stickers and make your artwork print ready for free, check out the stickers they did for us:
The best part of my gloating of these awesome stickers? You can win some too!
To Enter: Just comment on this post, and perhaps describe your sticker needs. One random winner will win a custom sticker printing job from StickerGiant.
Contest ends on January 3, 2012! If you can’t wait to see if you’ve won, by all means just go check out StickerGiant.com and order some yourself!
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