Sunday, August 19, 2007

Smart Market Research

The Thirty Day Challenge has been well and truly underway for a couple of weeks now, and keeping us all very busy – so busy in fact, that The Smart Marketer’s Blog has been left feeling rather neglected!

So, what’s been happening?

The first two weeks have focused heavily on Market Research – get this part wrong, or skip over it completely – and you’re doomed to failure. Sounds harsh, but it's true.

Where do we look for Niche Market ideas?
Online and Offline is the short answer!

Online – Check out groups at places like google, yahoo and facebook – what are people are talking about? Which groups have high activity? What sort of questions are people asking? What do they want to know?
Other sources of hot information are place like ebay pulse, Technorati and Google Trends.

Offline – Carry a notebook with you, always. As you go about your busy life, just notice and note down what people are talking about. What magazines are hot sellers? Pick up a copy and flick through the pages – notice the type of ads being run.

‘Noticing’, at this stage (and taking notes), is your mission. Don’t be tempted to Judge any subject matter, try and keep your opinions out of it! ‘Judging’ comes later, when we analyze the online demand for a market.

What to do with Ideas?
Our first port of call is the Free Keyword Tool at Wordtracker

Enter your keywords, copy and paste your results in a Word Processor application of your choice.

Take a look at Google’s results for your keywords. Notice the competition – are there a ton of PPC ads? Good. That’s a reasonable indication that there’s money to be made in the niche. And competition is great! Competition will make you a better marketer, you’ll strive to offer only the best information, only the best content and consequently you’re giving your readers a top site to visit!

That’s what the internet's all about, offering quality and value to our visitors.

Friday, August 03, 2007

More Power to Web 2.0

The incredible power of Web 2.0 is quite literally being demonstrated by Thirty Day Challenge itself...

Over the past two days, more people have joined the challenge than the total number of participants in TDC 1 and 2.

The challenge is serving over a Terrabyte of data a day, continually upgrading and adding more hardware.

The challenge is the 963rd most traffiked site on the internet, according to alexa - and that's only a smidge behind The Simpson's Movie!

Without doubt, this is the biggest internet training event - ever!

So that's what you're a part of, if you're already on board - and if you've not signed up, you're missing out on history in the making, besides all the quality content and learning experience, of course.

And the last thing, that really deserves a mention here is this - Ed, Dan and The Marillion Team are putting on the whole challenge totally at their own expense. Participants aren't charged a single cent and actually stand to turn a profit from the event. These guys are putting up thousands of dollars, out of their own pockets and revealing a staggering amount of information, that won't be found anywhere else.

So, just in case Ed or Dan should drop by here, I'd like to say a huge thankyou to them, not only from me, but also many of our subscribers who are benefiting hugely (already) from The Thirty Day Challenge.

Until next time,
Steph.
The incredible power of Web 2.0 is quite literally being demonstrated by Thirty Day Challenge itself...

Over the past two days, more people have joined the challenge than the total number of participants in TDC 1 and 2.

The challenge is serving over a Terrabyte of data a day, continually upgrading and adding more hardware.

The challenge is the 963rd most traffiked site on the internet, according to alexa - and that's only a smidge behind The Simpson's Movie!

Without doubt, this is the biggest internet training event - ever!

So that's what you're a part of, if you're already on board - and if you've not signed up, you're missing out on history in the making, besides all the quality content and learning experience, of course.

And the last thing, that really deserves a mention here is this - Ed, Dan and The Marillion Team are putting on the whole challenge totally at their own expense. Participants aren't charged a single cent and actually stand to turn a profit from the event. These guys are putting up thousands of dollars, out of their own pockets and revealing a staggering amount of information, that won't be found anywhere else.

So, just in case Ed or Dan should drop by here, I'd like to say a huge thankyou to them, not only from me, but also many of our subscribers who are benefiting hugely (already) from The Thirty Day Challenge.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Thirty Day Challenge: Day One

At 9am, EST, Day One of The Thirty Day Challenge was unleashed on an eager worldwide audience.

Servers groaned, as over a thousand people downloaded Ed’s video and podcast within seconds of the challenge going live. Twitter was alive with excitement and throughout the globe, teams on a high of anticipation were logging in to Facebook’s secret forums and chattering on Skype.

Ed Dale’s opening gambit, from Melbourne Australia, was calm and concise. Ed aka ‘the tubby nerd’, has a relaxed and humorous disposition, putting the many ‘newbies’ and seasoned marketers alike, at ease.

The ‘techy’ member of the team, Dan Raine from Manchester England, released his impatiently awaited ‘TDC Toolbar’. Integrating seamlessly into Firefox, the toolbar affords the user a search feature for The Thirty Days dashboard and forums, a feed to The Thirty Day Challenge blog, links to key areas of The Challenge Site and quick access to Twitter, StumbleUpon, FaceBook and Digg, all integral to this year’s challenge.

Throughout the balmy month of August, studying is to revolve around the Four Keys to Internet Marketing… described by Ed as ‘A Magnificent Symphony in Four Movements’…

First up, Market Research – there’s so much information out there on the internet, it’s a crime not to use it and really gain incite into your markets – not products – markets.

Second, Traffic – there's no getting away from it, no matter how good your product or service, your work is all in vain if no one sees it.

Third in line, Conversion – it’s all well and good driving traffic to your site, but without a great conversion process - and that doesn’t necessarily mean a long wordy sales letter – your product still is going to stay on the shelf.

And finally, The Productmust be quality. Why else would you go through stages one to three, only to end the whole process with a second rate product? Besides, you want the best for your customer.

And the really exciting part? All the above will be accomplished using Web 2.0. None of the tools, software or even your traffic will cost a single cent.

More updates over the weekend, when we take a closer look at Market Research.

Regards,

Steph.

P.s. I almost forgot! Jason James’ just handed me his, hot off the press ‘Untold Marketing Secrets’ Report. Download a free copy and learn Jason’s secrets!