Market Online with Confidence, Not Desperation

By Mike Johnston | Published: January 23, 2011

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Copyright © Mike Johnston

Every time you open your email box these days it’s full of offers. A noteworthy thing has happened in this regard. Some email marketers who used to send out a mailing or two a day are now sending out double that amount or more per day. What’s more, the subject lines that some email marketers are using seem to indicate desperation on their part. They’ll say anything to get you to open their email, and hope in desperation that you’ll purchase their offer. With that in mind, see if you recognize some of the following email subject lines….

  • Re: Claim your $1000 from ClickBankCash
  • You EARN 112% TO 180%
  • NO RISK-$15k-20k Monthly Income!
  • RE: Brand NEW Push-Button Software Makes $389,783 Clickbank Cash
  • Passive Cash! $103,078 Commissions over & over!
  • Automated Click-Easy Script Made $356,790 From ClickBank
  • Urgent: About Your ClickBank Account
  • Your Order Confirmation is ACTIVATED!!!
  • Re: personal (please read)
  • Payment Refund Confirmation
  • RE: Your Account
  • RE: About Your Question
  • Confirmation VERIFIED
  • You earned a check – Take action now!
  • REFERRAL CONFIRMATION

Of course, many more could be added to the list, but you get the point. How effective do you think their marketing is? Do you see any long-term income from such marketing tactics? Even if some quick bucks are made this type of marketing will not provide a person with sustainable income. Unfortunately, this trend is likely to continue for a while. So the question is, how can you avoid such desperate tactics?

Diversify Your Marketing Methods

Now let’s get one thing straight. Email marketing is a good method to use when used properly. However, if that’s all you’re using and the bottom falls out, then desperation could set in. You don’t want that. So, what can you do? You guessed it. You must diversify by using more than one marketing method.

There are, of course, many methods you can use to complement email marketing.

  • Use a blog or blogs
  • Article marketing
  • Video marketing
  • Ezine marketing
  • Pay Per Click

You can no doubt add to that short list, but the point is, there are several options. The key here is to be balanced. If you go in too many different directions, you might stifle your progress. If, on the other hand, you work with two or three methods, developing expertise in each one, you’ll likely experience good results. Also, you’ll not feel the desperation that so many marketers face when the only method they use starts to fail big time. So go ahead and diversify your marketing methods. You’ll be glad you did, because you’ll market online with confidence, thus avoiding the desperate measures that so many are using these days.

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5 IDEAS YOU CAN USE TO CREATIVELY EXPAND YOUR BUSINESS

By Mike Johnston | Published: December 18, 2010

Copyright © Mike Johnston

Have you had a great idea lately? If you have that’s awesome! But you know, your ideas can only produce cash flow if they’re put into motion. Of course, it takes imagination and ingenuity to come up with great ideas. So put your talents to use and as you come up with great ideas pursue them. While it’s great to come up with your own ideas, don’t dismiss getting ideas from various sources. All of that having been said check out the following 5 marketing sources for spawning some great ideas.

  1. You may or may not have heard, but the wellness industry is huge and expanding. So to get great ideas for marketing wellness products, go to Marketing Health.com. There you’ll find a wide array of products targeted to the wellness industry. Become an affiliate, choose your product and set up your marketing. That’s all there is to it.
  2. Creating your own product can be overwhelming unless you have some expert assistance. That’s where Café Press.com comes in. They have millions of amazing designs on a wide array of products. So if you want to create something that’s truly memorable and one-of-a-kind, or create your own custom designed product, Café Press can help you to make it happen. They make the process of creating a stunning product simple.
  3. Nooti.com provides a listing of CPA or cost-per-action offers. Contained here is a goldmine of great marketing ideas. You can choose to offer things like paid surveys and gift cards. Go there, look around, join a network or two and get busy.
  4. Get your creative juices flowing by checking out Animoto.com. Animoto is a service that combines your images, music, and video clips into a killer production much like a movie trailer. You can make videos about whatever you want. Upload your images and video clips, along with whatever text or story you want to include. After that choose your sound track, either off their site or provide your own. Thereafter, they go to work on your production and provide you with a fantastic production for your marketing venture.
  5. Let Google assist you in coming up with great marketing ideas. Go to Google.com/insights/search to see what people all over the world are looking for. There you’ll be able identify trend searches and see news items that can lead to lucrative ideas. You’ll be amazed at what you come up with as you look around.

There you go—5 ideas that will get your creative juices flowing and bank account growing. Now keep in mind that these are just 5 of many, many sources that you can consult. This merely gives you an idea of what’s available out there. Be sure to search out more sources that will assist you in coming up with great marketing ideas. The 5 listed here have merely scratched the surface. Once you get going, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to come with great marketing ideas.

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HOW TO EXPERTLY ESTABLISH YOURSELF ONLINE

By Mike Johnston | Published: December 8, 2010

To enjoy the success you desire in your home based business, you first and foremost need to establish and brand yourself. But how do you do it? What are some things you need to focus on in order to accomplish it? Let’s explore this subject.

Know what you want. In order to establish yourself, you have to know exactly what you want. What does this require? It requires thinking deeply about what your business can do for you, and what goals you want to achieve. So, begin by asking yourself questions like the following ones, then ponder over and answer those questions.

  • ‘What is the most important thing my business can do for me?’
  • ‘What do I want to accomplish with my business?’
  • ‘What are my business goals?’

You may come up with answers like these….

► ‘Provide me with time / freedom’

► ‘Provide me with an endless flow of cash’

► ‘No longer tied down to a job’

► ‘More time for family, friends, and spiritual pursuits’

► ‘To establish myself as an expert in my market’

► ‘To provide excellent training and leadership for my market’

Mentioned already is the fact that you need to give the subject considerable thought. You’ll come up with own questions and answers. Once you arrive at that point, the direction you need to go will be clear.

You must have a solid plan of action. Once again, this cannot be approached in a lackadaisical, haphazard fashion. Putting your business plan together requires forethought, insight, and planning. So, ask yourself questions that will lead you to put together a solid business plan for your market. You might ask yourself:

  • ‘What specific steps do I need to take?’
  • ‘What do people in my market want?’

If you’re promoting a home based business, your answers may be similar to these:

► ‘To achieve time / freedom’

► ‘Develop and maintain an endless flow of cash’

► ‘To become effective leaders’

► ‘To receive and provide awesome training’

Once you’ve answered those questions, take the needed action to put your business plan together and move forward.

Establish yourself as an expert. In order to establish yourself online as an expert, you have to decide how to position yourself as a solution to your market. To do that you have to know your market’s fears, desires, needs, and wants. When you know what your market is seeking, you’ll then be able to position yourself as an expert, thus providing what they’re seeking.

What you provide for your market could be webinar training sessions, how-to video modules, or information packed articles and ebooks. Use your imagination and give your market material that will improve their business.  You’ll find that they’ll continue seeking your practical advice and direction, thus opening the way for many prosperous ventures.

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SKILLFULLY AND LOGICALLY EXPOSE YOUR ARTICLES TO A HUNGRY MARKET

By Mike Johnston | Published: November 26, 2010

Copyright © Mike Johnston

Article marketing is one of the most consistent forms of marketing online. This form of marketing is consistent, in that, it hasn’t really changed much from its start. Article marketing is roughly the same today that it was ten years ago. Because of that fact article marketing offers something that other forms of marketing don’t, namely, long-term stability. So here are some questions for consideration. How can you use this consistent form of marketing to your advantage? In what ways can you present your articles in a skillful, logical, yet appealing manner? Let’s delve into this topic, shall we? Following are some tips, tricks, and techniques that you can use in article marketing.

Have your ultimate goal clearly in mind. Before you can write effective articles, you have to clearly understand what you intend to accomplish. Take the time to give this careful consideration. Ask yourself, ‘What is the purpose of this article? What is my ultimate goal? Is this article hitting the target?’ Those points have to be clear in your mind in order to skillfully convey a logical message to your readers. You’ll achieve your goal only if you connect with your readers. Your readers have to be able to see how your articles relate to their market.

Circulate your articles throughout your market. If you’re to effectively use article marketing in your business, then you need to expose your articles to your market. There are various ways to do this, and listed here are a few of the best ways.

  • Post your articles in article directories
  • Post articles on your blog
  • Post articles on IM Faceplate or Better Networker
  • Tell your Twitter and Facebook followers and fans when you post a new article
  • Email articles to your list

Doing those things will assure a wide distribution of your articles. People in your market who hunger for information will readily devour your articles.

Use articles to build your list. When your articles connect with those in your market, they’ll eagerly look forward to more information. Make sure you provide a means for them to opt in to your mailing list. This provides a systematic way to get your articles to those on your list. When you draft a new article, you then simply email blast the article from your autoresponder to your list. In turn, you stay connected and keep your readers engaged.

Plan a series of connecting articles. At times it’s good to put together a series of articles that logically connect one to the other. This is a nice way to keep your readers anticipating your next article. You might, for example, present “part 1” closely followed by “part 2” and then “part 3.” Just an idea, but you get the picture.

Make sure the search engines find your articles. In order to enjoy wide circulation on the Internet, your articles must be search engine compatible. Following are some ways to make friends with search engines.

  • Use popular keywords and keyword phrases that are being searched for on a regular basis
  • Point to where your articles are located by posting comments in forums and on blogs
  • Ping your articles for greater exposure by using pingomatic or something similar. You can learn more by clicking here.

Applying those methods will get the attention of search engines and increase article exposure.

Be Consistent, Persistent, and Patient

Article marketing is truly a great way to brand yourself and to market your products or service. Consistency is the key, coupled with persistence and patience. It takes time to put together and circulate articles online, as well as becoming popular with readers, but it’s well worth the time and effort. So be consistent, persistent, and patient as you take full advantage of this avenue of marketing. At the same time, as you continually hone your skills and present your articles in a logical manner, you’ll acquire a never-ending line of hungry readers eagerly anticipating every article you publish.

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CREATE KILLER ADS WITH THIS EASY TO USE STRATEGY

By Mike Johnston | Published: November 15, 2010

Copyright © Mike Johnston

Running great ads can handsomely reward you and your business. At the same time it can be challenging to come up with a great ad. Hence, it would be wonderful if an easy strategy for creative ad copy existed. Well, listen up, because there is a simple strategy that you can follow when creating your ads. In fact, you can do it in 5 easy steps. Let’s get started, shall we?

Step#1: Put value into your advertising. How? Do you excel in a certain form of training? Advertise the training and make some of it available for free. Sharing some of your best training without cost will catapult your popularity. It’s one of the greatest forms of advertising.

Step#2: Identify and name a common problem found in your market. For example, a common problem found in network marketing is getting fresh, responsive leads. So identify a common problem that your market constantly faces, a problem that they must urgently solve.

Step#3: Present a solution to their common problem. Make it clear that what you offer will immediately solve their problem. Give them assurance beyond any doubt that your product or service is what they need.

Step#4: Provide undeniable proof that your product or service will solve their problem. Leave no question in your prospect’s mind by including 3rd party testimonials from existing, satisfied customers.

Step#5: Make your offer irresistible by eliminating any risk of loss. For instance, a money back guarantee removes any risk from a purchase. This makes your offer impossible to refuse.

Using this 5 step strategy will dramatically increase the effectiveness of your ads. What’s more, it’s easy to implement this strategy. So if your ads have lacked effectiveness, employ this 5 step strategy. Create killer ads with this easy to use strategy, and your business will thrive like never before.

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HOW TO PROPERLY UTILIZE TWITTER

By Mike Johnston | Published: November 2, 2010

Twitter is one of the finest social platforms out there for sharing your thoughts and for getting more leads for your business. Unfortunately, many marketers are using it the wrong way. Why defeat your purpose to prosper in your business? Learn how to use Twitter properly. But how, you may ask? An article published by Terry Duff titled, “How To Use Twitter To Help Build Your Business” tells you how.  Following are some highlights of the article.

  • Find those in your niche and communicate with them
  • Share insightful posts with meaningful content
  • Don’t “spam” them with your biz op
  • Use Twitter’s search feed to converse with those in your niche

Those are but a few of the highlights. You’ll want to check out the article for yourself in order to glean more insight. Also, while you’re there, you’ll want to download Terry’s free report titled: “How To Create YOUR First 6-Figure Month In Network Marketing.”

Twitter is truly a great social platform. When utilized properly it’ll serve your business well. So remember to use Twitter as a communication tool, engaging your followers with relevant information in your niche, while you refrain from the urge to flood prospects with your business opportunity. Use Twitter that way and it’ll be a real asset to your business.

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THREE AFFILIATE MARKETING MISTAKES TO AVOID

By Mike Johnston | Published: October 20, 2010

Copyright © Mike Johnston

When set up properly affiliate marketing can provide a very good income for several years. In fact, many people consider it to be relatively easy when compared with other home based ventures. Yet, as simple as many perceive it to be, effort needs to be put forth along with some caution. Enter three common affiliate marketing mistakes that could destroy your business. Commit these errors and likely you’ll fail. Avoid these errors and you’ll prosper. Let’s take these three points one at a time, shall we?

  1. Use an affiliate site the wrong way and you’re likely to fail. How do you avoid this mistake? Simple, use splash pages when marketing to potential customers. Your splash page could take those who show interest directly to your affiliate site after you’ve captured their email address. Of course, you must offer something of value for free in order to capture their email address. Once you have their contact information, you can follow up with additional contact.
  2. Complicated websites confuse people rather than attract them. If you use a splash page or website full of flashy banners and affiliate links, you’re asking for trouble. When promoting a product be sure to keep the process simple. Promote one product, not a dozen. Confuse potential customers and they’ll quickly lose interest. Once they move on, they won’t be back. Keeping the process simple is wise because an interested customer will always return to see what’s new. Furthermore, simple and uncluttered pages load faster.
  3. Failure to protect your affiliate links could result in loss of commissions. It’s truly a shame that we have to take this step, but the reality is there are those who gladly steal commissions that don’t belong to them. So what can you do to protect yourself? Though there’s no absolute way to prevent commission theft, cloaking and redirecting your links will help. How does cloaking work? Basically, you enter your affiliate link into the cloaking field in your cloaking program, and it will cloak or hide the affiliate portion of your link. Cloak your links and you’ll have decent protection against commission theft.

So there you have it—three things with which you need to remain vigilant. Avoid those mistakes and you stand a better chance to succeed in affiliate marketing.

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BUILD A LIST USING LIST BUILDERS

By Mike Johnston | Published: October 6, 2010

Copyright © Mike Johnston

You’ve heard it said a multitude of times and in a variety of ways. But however it’s presented, it points to the same thing, namely, it’s vital to build a list. There are a couple of different ways to do it. For example, you can put up splash pages in traffic exchanges to capture names and email addresses, or you could put an opt in box on your website with a free offer. Those methods are certainly effective. For this article though, we’ll target list builders in particular.

What is a list builder? Basically, a list builder is a membership site comprised of members that make up a list you can contact via email. Membership in some of these sites can be several thousand.

There are quite a few popular list builders. Generally, you can join as a free member, but keep in mind that you’ll receive limited benefits. For instance, you can join Quick List Profits, List Zillion, or Micro List as a free member, but you’ll only be able to send mail every seven days. What’s more, you’re limited as to the number of people you can email. Granted, you can still benefit from those limited mailings, but it’s a whole lot better to upgrade. Most programs have a very attractive lifetime member offer at a great price, with tons of benefits, when you first sign up. The catch is you have to take advantage of it right then and there. It’s the best deal and certainly worth grabbing lifetime memberships when joining various list builders.

Now let’s take a look at the benefits of being an upgraded member in a list builder. As an upgraded member, most sites will allow you to send email every three days. That means you can send email to thousands of people every three days! So let’s look at the possibilities. Let’s say you’ve joined three list builders and grabbed an upgraded account at each one. If each list builder allows you to email 3,000 people every three days, then you’ll be sending your offers to 9,000 people every three days! You can do the math to see how those numbers add up over the months and years. No doubt you can see the possibilities of emailing tens of thousands of people throughout the year.

If you’ve yet to build a list, grabbing a membership in a list builder might be a good starting point. Simply follow the directions laid out in the list builder and you’ll enjoy an ever expanding list. So what are you waiting for? Get a list started today by grabbing a list builder membership.

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HOW TO COMBAT INFORMATION OVERLOAD

By Mike Johnston | Published: September 26, 2010

Copyright © Mike Johnston

Have you noticed these days how many programs are being launched? Yeah, that’s right, one after another after another. Depending on your particular marketing needs, some of the programs may serve you well. Conversely, you may be purchasing programs that aren’t doing you or your business much good. How could that be? Let’s explore two possibilities along with a balanced marketing strategy.

You’ve probably heard someone talking about or read articles regarding information overload. Let’s face it, if your mind becomes glutted with too much information, there’s generally a tendency to do one of the following two things.

  1. Spread yourself so thin that you cannot give proper attention to any one program
  2. Simply have your momentum paralyzed by too many possibilities

Unfortunately, both of these points translate into little or no money for your business. So the question is, how do you combat information overload? Well, let’s cover the first point, shall we?

In the case of giving attention to several programs or techniques at once, it can be said that too much of a good thing can be bad. Perhaps all the techniques or programs offer something you can use, but if you do too much at once, your business will be slow to prosper. You see, giving a lot of attention to a few things is better than giving a little attention to many things. Become an expert in a few areas and your business will thrive. Not only is this a great marketing strategy, but you’ll also experience feelings of accomplishment more often.

Now let’s go to the second point. If you have a multitude of programs or constantly ponder how you can possibly put into practice every technique, you may very well become frustrated and immobilized. Too many possibilities can lock the mind into inactivity when it comes to your business.

If you’re in this category, what can you do? Put together a business marketing plan that allows you to focus on just a few techniques or how-to programs at once. That’s not to say that you cannot expand your horizons at a future time. No, eventually you’ll want to master more marketing techniques and focus on other how-to programs. But initially you want to hit the ground running by mastering techniques that will bring about positive cash flow. By keeping things simple you’ll ensure productive activity rather than stagnation.

Information overload never has to be a problem if you think ahead and put together a business marketing plan that includes expansion of techniques as your online business grows.

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PUT SOME ORANGE INTO YOUR ONLINE MARKETING

By Mike Johnston | Published: September 23, 2010

Tim Linden, who owns StartXchange traffic exchange, has just published a new e-book titled “Orange Secrets” “How to Curb Stomp the Competition.” This is a free resource in which you can glean some pointers from a person who has built a very successful online business. It can be read in a very short time—less than 30 minutes—if you have a tight schedule. You’ll definitely want to get your copy. Here are a few things that you’ll discover.

  • The wisdom of not quitting your day job until your online business is really solid
  • Why you should use squeeze pages for marketing
  • The logic in tracking your results
  • A secret that will enable you to “Curb Stomp your Competition”
  • How to market to people on your list
  • Great ways to get maximum exposure

This is an excellent resource, one that will benefit you and your online business. Grab your free copy now and extract the marketing gems inside.

Just a note about Tim Linden in case you’ve never heard of him. Tim owns and operates one of the most successful and long-running traffic exchanges online. StartXchange currently has 83,358 members, and has been online since 2001.

Also, if you’re into photography, Tim has a nice blog with a lot of great pictures. Be sure to check it out.

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