Thursday, December 31, 2009

Free Wordpress Theme & A Happy New Year!

Just a quick post to wish you all the best for 2010! I hope you've been enjoying the holiday festivities and not working too hard ;0)

To celebrate the New Year, we'd like to give you a brand new Wordpress Theme to help enhance your blogging efforts...

The Theme 'Fabulus.001', courtesy of Fabulus Software, is a two column, fixed width, left sidebar template.

The theme comes in orange and white...




All that's left to say is Happy New Year!

Cheers,
Steph.


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Monday, December 07, 2009

Secrets of Effective Internet Marketing?

What are the secrets of effective internet marketing?

Since the dawn of the internet, entrepreneurs have been seeking the answer.

Truth is, there are no secrets – there; I’ve said it – There Are NO Secrets. Internet ‘gurus’ rely on hungry, would-be internet rock stars to keep searching – and spending.

How often have you responded to a promotion, desperate to get your hands on some new eBook, eCourse, dvd or software? But your credit card’s maxed out and you have to pass up the purchase. Now think about it, honestly, a few hours later (if not sooner), you’ve forgotten about this ‘missed opportunity’ to become richer than your wildest dreams and your business rolls on regardless.

Conversely, how many times have you jumped at a promotion, only to find your new acquisition isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and you really could have done without it – and you could have spent the cash more wisely?

There is however, an art to effective internet marketing - testing, tweaking, tracking, multi-platform promotion… None of which has anything to do with the traditional hype that surrounds internet marketing.

In order to closely monitor and re-evaluate your marketing efforts, a certain amount of technology must be introduced, in the form of tools and resources - auto responders, link tracking, blogs, training & support, affiliate tracking, web page authoring, statistics tracking...

Let’s take a look at the whys and wherefores of some of these tools…

  • Auto responder – Capture emails, build a subscriber list, broadcast messages, follow-up messages. You’re not going to survive without a list of subscribers to build a relationship with, give massive value to and market to.
  • Link Tracking – Track your ads to establish which ones produce the best results, weed out those ads that cost you money without producing any results.
  • Blogs – Google loves blogs. Reach out to your target audience, encourage comments and interaction. Again providing valuable content your readers will love you for.
  • Training – Could you fly a plane without being taught what all the instruments mean? Internet Marketing is just the same, you have to learn before you can do, but you don’t need the confusion caused by learning snippets from multiple sources, simultaneously.
  • Support – Who’s your ‘go to guy’ when you get stuck? If you’re answer is nobody, you’re making things so much more difficult for yourself. Any problem you come across has been experienced by someone before you; prosper from other’s knowledge – don’t spend hours or days over something that could be solved with a quick question.
  • Stats tracking – Do you know where your website visitors come from? Well, you should! Don’t waste your money or your efforts on anything that’s not working for you.
There’s a lot to learn and even more to do. Fast-track it whenever and wherever possible, but learn when Not to cut corners. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Do track everything you do. Do keep notes of strategies that work; and those that don’t. In short – don’t bang your head against a brick wall :0)

Being a Smart Marketer, you’ll realize that tools and resources don’t come cheap. The answer to the problem is to find all these tools under a single roof, with one low monthly cost.

If you want to know the resources I use to build all my businesses, you can check it out here. Your first 30 days is completely free – no credit card required and monthly fees start at just $9.




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