The 3 Secrets to Massive Online Marketing Success

If you’re trying to sell products and services online, you’re probably looking for that one magic key to make your business work.

You buy CDs and DVDs that will tell you the secret.

You subscribe to sites like Copyblogger to study the secret.

You look at mega-successful sites in your market and try to reverse engineer the secret.

After all of this searching, you may be tempted to believe there is no secret. But the secret is real.

Actually, there are three secrets that work together. To be blunt, these three magic success secrets separate the winners from the losers. Master them and you’ll start to move forward. Slowly at first, then you’ll pick up momentum and things will start to move amazingly quickly. No baloney, no tricks. These three secrets are . . .

Success secret #1: Take action

Every year, hopeful entrepreneurs buy millions of dollars’ worth of “how to succeed” or “how to start a business” products. The market isn’t limited to doing business online, but the idea of working at a computer making “six-figure incomes in our pajamas” is especially irresistible.

95% of the customers for these products will spend thousands of dollars, then turn around looking for the next magic pill before their credit card gets a chance to cool off. So are online marketing products all garbage? Are they just hype and spin?

There are some junky products out there, but the truth is that many of them are excellent. The “gurus,” as they’re (not always affectionately) called, have a lot of sound advice to give. Their advice can make you lots of money, if you know the success secret:

You actually have to do something with the advice.

Most customers for “business opportunity” products value the dream more than they do the result. They want to get out of the cubicle, out of their crummy apartment, out of credit card debt. They might even want it desperately. But they don’t take action.

I’m not saying this to be flippant or harsh. It’s not actually all that easy to go from advice to action. If you don’t have a good track record for that, if you’ve spent a lot of time or money on how-to products but never really done anything with it, you may believe you’ll never master it.

That’s BS.

Your new productivity methodology

Get a little notebook. This is your to-do list for your project.

If you’re a content marketer, most of your actions will revolve around creating content, creating products, or delivering services. Be sure and maintain a long list of content ideas, so you’re never at a loss when it’s time to knock out a post or a podcast.

Write down all the actions you must take to get you to the next step. Add more actions as you think of them. Cross them off when you’re done. When the list is a mess, rewrite it.

You don’t need an elaborate system that wastes more time than it frees up. 

Your system only needs to help you know what to do next.

Work every day (7 days a week, no exceptions), even if some days you only have 15 minutes. Working every day will increase your productivity by spurring your unconscious mind to come up with more ideas. This is helpful for entrepreneurs, and critical for content marketers.

Make a daily habit of one hour of action on your biggest goal. You’ll be astonished at how quickly you start to make progress. Ready, Fire, Aim author Michael Masterson recommends an hour of work on your dream goal every morning, as a way to start your day with a terrific rush of productivity. I’ve been doing just that for the past few months, and I’m starting to get used to the “whooshing” sound as the pieces fall into place. Not only does it work, it feels great too.

You can spend that hour all at once, or divide it into two or three pieces. Make it work for you. And once you develop the hour-a-day habit, you’ll actually find yourself making excuses to do more work on your project.

Success is built on lots of small steps. Start taking them. You’ve built this up in your head to be 1,000 times harder than it is. The fact that you have historically been terrible at getting stuff done is not relevant at all.

Just start taking action. It honestly is that simple.

Success secret #2: Have a plan

The down side of “just taking action” is that if you do a lot of random tasks, you tend to get a lot of random results.

You need to put together a simple, reasonably logical plan. If you want notoriety and attention for its own sake, put together a Paris Hilton sort of plan. If you want credibility and trust from your customers, make it more of a Copyblogger kind of plan.

There’s an old saying that when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem tends to look like a nail. Fight that kind of thinking as much as you can. Your plan may call for expertise you don’t have, or actions you aren’t very good at. So make some room in your plan to partner with someone else. If you’re great at connecting with customers but lousy at technology, find a partner whose strengths and weaknesses perfectly complement yours. Believe me, that person is out there and wants desperately to work with you.

Making too many plans can be the enemy of success secret #1. Be sure your plan has plenty of room for “actions I will take.”

For most of us, grandiose plans don’t get implemented. It’s great to have spectacular goals, if that inspires you. But put together plans for relatively simple, manageable projects. A dumb, simple little project that gets done is infinitely more valuable than an impressive one that gets 99% done.

The reason “back-of-the-napkin” project planning is a cliché is because simple, compact plans tend to get put into action, while 1,000-page strategies to create business empires tend to gather dust.

Keep your project plan in your little notebook. If your plan doesn’t fit into a small notebook, make a smaller plan.

If you want to make a million dollars online, start with a project to make $10. Figure that out, then scale it. It sounds simplistic and even silly, but it works.

Success secret #3: Your secret sauce is you

This is the one that’s going to take #1 and #2 to a completely new level. Success secrets #1 and #2 can make you a decent living. Add #3 to those and you’ll start to create an extraordinary business that supports a meaningful life.

As a content marketer, you’re going to need to create interesting, useful and compelling content pretty much every day you’re in this business. Your blog posts, free reports and email newsletters all contribute to one goal: to establish you as a trusted authority on your topic.

If you’re just going to regurgitate the usual stuff in a lame me-too blog, you’re not going to find too many customers. You’re betting off spending your time surfing or skateboarding — at least with those, you’ll get some exercise and you might meet somebody cute.

You have a unique view of your market’s problems. You have a unique set of techniques and approaches to solve those problems. You have a unique set of experiences to put the problems in a fresh light. Share those unique perspectives in your content.

If you need more expertise to establish yourself as a credible authority, get out and start asking questions. Be a reporter. Look for case studies. Look for real-life examples, even if they’re tiny. Look for lessons in your own life. Make connections no one’s made yet. Bring someone else’s expertise to light in a new way.

If you’re a Franciscan monk, write about the Franciscan monk’s guide to brewing better beer. If you’re a doting parent, write about the toddler’s guide to success. If you’re an indentured servant for a big corporation, write about how to avoid doing all the really dumb stuff your company does.

There will always be people — often thousands of people — who know more than you do. Acknowledge that so you stay humble and open. Then put it to one side and speak up anyway.

Keep whittling down your topic until you’re speaking with an authentic voice about something you genuinely know and care about. Stay curious and you’ll find the path that works for you and only for you.

The real secret

Nearly everyone will read this, feel inspired for about 45 seconds, then go off to hit Starbucks and check out what the hottie on the 2nd floor is wearing today.

But you’re going out at lunch today to pick up your small notebook. As soon as you get back, you’re going to scribble a simple plan and a good handful of actions that will make the plan happen. You’re going to put some thought into how you can execute this plan in your own inimitable way.

You’ll make 10 minutes and take an action today, even if it’s small. Tomorrow morning, you’ll start working for an hour every day, 7 days a week, toward your biggest goal. And just like that, you’ll be on your way to true, meaningful success, however you define it.

Send me a postcard when you’ve reached your dream. I’ll be very jazzed to hear from you.

5 Steps to Make More Money Online

You could say building a successful personal brand online comes down to understanding one rule:

“It’s not about what you want to say; it’s about what you want people to know.”

It may sound simple but the difference between a successful and unsuccessful online personal brand for an entrepreneur can often be measured by not understanding the difference between a ‘statement’ and ‘proposition of value’.

Here are the top 5 steps to take to ensure the success of your personal brand:

1) Assess your position

Before you can begin to define your online brand and position yourself, it’s important to understand what works. For example, say that you would like to start a business by selling designed goods in online marketplaces. A reasonable move would be to look at successful sellers on sites from Fab to Etsy and identify how they do it: Look at the voice they use, the social media channels they operate on, even the colors and fonts they employ. Do the same with sellers that don’t resonate with you and the contrast between the two will more clearly reveal how you would like your message to be received and the methods to achieve it.

2) Create the foundation

Just as the services or goods you provide are unique and valuable, so too must be your personal brand. The most important process in personal branding is defining what makes you unique and why should anyone pay attention to what you have to say? More importantly, try to understand what it is about you that would be of value to both your target audience and your peers. If you can define who they are and what they are looking for, you can then begin to structure a truly authentic brand message. It’s not easy having a clear vision of yourself, so it might help to ask your friends, family and your fellow entrepreneurs how they perceive you and what are your strengths. Authenticity is central to personal brand success.

3) Extend your reach

Look at the social platforms you operate on and refine them in line with your message. If you don’t have a blog, maybe you should think of creating one. If you do, optimize its brand message. More importantly, identify areas important to your audience you aren’t active in and get involved. The key here is to be both consistent and individualized. Your message needs to be standardized across your digital footprint, but tailored to suit the unique environment of each social platform. What works for Facebook doesn’t work for Twitter. Don’t forget there are plenty of services out there to help you customize your personal brand content exactly as you want it. Don’t be afraid to play around and see what works, but always stay on message and maintain your authenticity. Just like you as a person, you’re building something greater than the sum of its parts.

4) Leverage your worth

So you’ve defined and built your personal brand, optimized the message and are now spreading it online. Now what?

The key to leveraging any brand is targeting not only the right audiences, but linking with the like minded. Get involved in the forums your audience participates in. Connect with trendsetters, thought leaders and of course your fellow entrepreneurs in your niche. Comment on blog posts that resonate with your personal brand, and always follow up with those who post on yours. Building connections and a community comes from being not only authentic and topical, but most importantly being seen as creating value, not noise.

5) Establish your leadership

For your online personal brand to be truly distinct and widely recognized, you need to lead. Build authority by bravely spreading your thought leadership wherever you can. Contribute guest articles on relevant blogs, lead discussions on forums and use your social media channels to invite opinions and debate. Remember, to be heard on the Internet you first need to be seen.

Of course, this process never really ends: Continually focus on how best to optimize your personal brand, keep making those connections and always ensure that what people hear about you is authentic and on message.

What are your thoughts on these steps to help you build your online brand? Have any tips that I may have missed? Add them to the comments below.

Online Marketing Success in 2013

Online Marketing Success Requires Key Elements

As the years go by the online marketing world grows tremendously and there is an increasing number of people who want to get into online marketing. But in most cases some people really don't even know what that means or what it takes. There are so many things that go under the overall online marketing tree that if you spoke to a hundred different "Internet Marketers" and asked them what they do, you would probably get a hundred different answers. Most of us have a hard time even trying to explain what it is we do to inquiring minds.

In it's definition, online marketing is the provision and promotion of products and services online. It merges the creative and technical aspects of marketing: design, development, advertising and sales. Since the beginning of the internet and search engines, internet usage has rapidly and steadily increased since the 80s/90s. The daily usual number of internet searches has increased a lot from just under 10,000 in the late 90s to well over 4 billion in the past year. That tally's up to more than a trillion internet searches a year with just Google by itself!

People are not just doing informative searches, but searches for products/services too. This means that the majority of consumers find out about the products and businesses they buy and do business with mainly through the internet. However, most search engine users usually only focus on the first page of search results - typically the top five results. Considering that more and more business is conducted online every year, it means that competition for these positions has grown and that they have major value to savvy business owners. It has come to the point where competition in local, national or international markets requires a consistent strong online presence. Gaining and maintaining a position on the first page of SERPs (search engine results pages) influence people to trust the solidity, dexterity and genuineness of your business/service.

Online Marketing Success is composed of a number different things like seo, ppc, social media, and online public relations are just a few of them. All of these strategies, when implemented properly and effectively, work in unison to boost website visibility with the ultimate goal of increasing conversions. Conversion is the result you want for a visitor to your website to make a purchase, phone call, download, complete a form etc.. It is whatever result based goal you have set for your website.

So, in this post I am going to give you some information and insight about some of the typical things you would need to learn and do if you were to start your own online marketing business.

Here are just some of the things you should learn and master to become good at online marketing...

SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will give you long term with the goal to increase popularity,visibility, authority, relevance and in result more conversions. SEO could be a whole course by itself. There are plenty of ebooks, blogs, courses and websites dedicated mainly to SEO training. It is extremely important and a huge part of what most advertising & marketing specialists do in their regular daily routine. There are thousands of internet marketers who spend literally day after day doing SEO and nothing else. It can take a long time to master the process/perfect the different techniques out there. Also, it is always changing, so staying on top of it all can be really exhausting. Every good internet marketer can have SEO as their main specialty and still be learning something new almost every day.

Part of SEO is the development of a website's content and structure. The most important thing to remember when conducting this is to write and build a website for users, not search engines. It is the main goal of a search engine is to show it's users relevant results. Their technology is always advancing and has become much better at recognizing low quality websites were the sole purpose is to get hits and be manipulative then penalize them. This means that the difficulty with which a website is controlled and the quality of its content are important factors in obtaining visibility on the major search engines.

Web Design

Before you start advertising & marketing anything on the internet or build an online marketing business, you need to have a website of some sort. There are plenty of tools and resources available (such as Word Press) that will help build a site for you. However, it still takes time to learn how to use those tools and actually get a site built the way you want it. Even the most rookie friendly systems have a learning curve and can take some time to set up. Then, you must learn some coding in order to make changes in certain places and customize your site beyond the basic themes/templates that site builders include.

And don't forget about DNS settings, domain registrations, settings tweaks, system installs, content uploads etc.. Those things also take time to do and require you to learn how to do them. There's a lot that goes into building a website and it's just one part of being an online marketing pro.

Writing Content

This is one thing that can take up a LOT of time in the daily routine of just about most internet marketer. Content is king in the world of advertising & marketing. You need it for just about everything you do. It doesn't matter if you are constructing a static site, updating a blog, marketing sites, writing articles, responding to emails, sending out your newsletter, replying to comments, participating in forums, copy writing, and so on... You will be writing and writing some more. It's all about content in the internet world so get ready to wear out many keyboards on your computer!

Blogging

The Internet has without a doubt moved towards blogs in the past couple of years and will likely continue to do so until they are the predominant force in the online world. Blogging is a very essential part of online marketing in a lot ways. Depending on your business standards, it can really be very vital to success online. It is good for making a brand for yourself, getting your content out to the internet, helping to spread your brand, building up a following, or you can make money from your blog only. Some marketers solely earn their whole incomes off of blogging. Although, in most cases, they are typically know as a blogger.

Social Media Marketing

I know you might have accounts with Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter,, Google Plus, and possibly a few others. If you don't then you certainly know someone close to you who does. Well, a typical internet marketer will have all of those profiles plus another 10 or 20 or more accounts on other social media sites that they have to manage.

Think about how much time you spend on those sites every day. It's not hard for an hour or more to pass without even noticing it. And you are only using them to keep up with family, friends, and what's go ing on around town. Internet marketers do all of that plus use them to network with business associates and prospects, keep up on our industry, spread the word about our content, and for other marketing reasons.

Being a social media consultant and doing all the social media marketing and updating for companies is something many people do as a full time business. It can take up a lot of time, but some how online marketing pro have to squeeze it into their daily routine along with about a thousand different things.

Pay Per Click

When you search something on Google you will notice there are usually some ads at the top above the organic rankings and a tower of them on the right side next to the organic results. They look a lot like the regular results but are slightly different. PPC are paid ads that show through Google AdWords. When somebody says PPC ads this is what they are referring to, even though there are technically many different forms of PPC. An individual bids on specific keywords in order to get an ad displayed and then they pay for every click they get on the ad.

This method is very popular with online marketers and other businesses that sell products or services online. The keyword research, set up, and management takes a lot of time, effort and skill. You can waste a lot of money if you just throw up your ad and let it go. Top PPC pro's can spend several years testing, tweaking and learning their systems in order to master Adwords and make their campaigns the most profitable.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is simply building up a list of email subscribers, creating a trust worth relationship with people so they join your list, sending them good useful content/resources, keeping them updated on the latest news in the niche they are interested in or about your business, and sending all sorts of other information. One popular saying in the IM world is, "the money is in the list" and there is a lot of truth to that. But it can be a little difficult to build a profitable list and as an online marketer you might be spending a lot of time perfecting this skill.

Product Creation

Product creation is a huge thing that online marketer's do is create information products such as ebooks, along with business services, SEO, membership sites, marketing tools, and so on. This stuff can take a long time to develop depending on what it is. Almost every website or web based service you use, or ebook you read, were created by some sort of online marketing expert in one way or another.

Videos

A huge part of Online Marketing Success nowadays is video production. I remember that back in 2003 this wasn't really a big deal at all. There were very few people doing them in those days. But video marketing has exploded in the past few years and will only continue to grow into the future. Videos can be instructive, funny, informational with the intent of maybe going viral, or made for advertising purposes. Whatever the reasons for videos, the fact is they are a part of running an online marketing business now and they can take a lot of work to do.

Because of the rapid increase in the use of the internet to find all kinds of products, services, organizations and tools, a advertising & marketing strategy centered around the internet is the modern way to advertise or promote what you have to offer. Online marketing is also the best form of marketing because it actually offers a way to track and analyze data. This means that your strategies can be tested, created, retested, refined and revised so that your site is designed to get the most conversions as it can possibly get.

Alright in conclusion, as I said, those are just SOME of the main things you will be doing regularly with online marketing. There's a lot more that you will surely be doing on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. I only scratched the surface of what being an online marketing pro fully entails. I didn't even get into client servicing, media buying, webinars, forums, training, etc.. It virtually never stops!

So, it's definitely not all fun and games relaxing on the beach with your laptop like many people think. Online marketing is a real business and there is a lot of work involved to build, grow, and maintain it. But if you are up for the challenge and willing to put in the time and effort, it can be a very rewarding way to make a living!

Ebook Publishing: How to Write an Ebook in 3 Days, Market It and Start Getting Sales in a Week

Ebook publishing is actually very easy. And, one of the reasons I love it is that you can get an idea in your head and get it out - and published - in a few hours or days. I know, I've written quite a few.

Following are some tips for writing an eBook that I've employed over the years that have allowed me to start my own little publishing empire.

Ebook Publishing: Specific Things I've Done to Write Books in as Little as a Few Hours

Find Time to Write: The reason so many put of writing an eBook is that they "have to find time to write" it. But again, you can literally bang one out in an 8 or 10 hour day if you want. It doesn't have to be this long, drawn out process.

One of my most successful ebooks was written in only 8 hours. Most take me about a week to finish (and that's because I'm usually working on client freelance writing projects in between).

Write an Outline: This is the first thing I do when I sit down to write an ebook. The reason is, it keeps me focused and on topic. It also helps me adhere to that all-important schedule of finishing within a few days.

Note: Your eBook outline will also become a critical part of your sales page. So it serves a double purpose and is a critical part of the ebook, publishing, writing - and sales - process.

Don't Edit, Write: One of the reasons you can write an eBook so quickly is when you sit down to write, just write. Don't worry about editing it or polishing it, or trying to make it perfect. Just get the thoughts out of your head down on paper.

Be sure to refer back to your eBook outline so you don't miss any important points.

I'm willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that if you do this, you'll have more than enough material for a 30, 40 or 50 pager if you write like this. You may even find yourself having to cut material.

Niche It: In my opinion (and to date I've written 18 ebooks), these little babies should be in the 30-60 page range. The reason is - again, in my experience and opinion - when most people purchase an ebook, they're looking for specific information on a specific topic.

And I'm talking about "non-fiction, how to" ebooks (the kind I specialize in).

Leave Out the Fluff: Notice the title of this article. It's very specific. When you read this, it had darned well better give you info about this - not about publishing in general, what size font to use, how to format page, etc.

You probably clicked on this article because you wanted info on... well... how to write an eBook in three days, right?

Edit/Revise/Rewrite: Once you've gotten the info down, then you can spend a day or so rewriting and organizing your material. But please don't spend too much time on this. You can edit or revise to death and it'll never be "quite right" (or make you money). But, you'll never know unless you publish the darn thing, now will ya?

Ebook Publishing Tip: The Best Way to Market to Get Quick Sales

Now that the writing is done, it's time to market. I use article marketing and posting ads on free classified ad sites like backpage. Usually, when I first publish an ebook, I'll write 20-30 articles during the first month (using SEO strategies to get search engine juice).

Then, I may keep that up and write one article a week for the next 4-5 months. Over time, this may drop off to 2-3 articles a month -- forever.

I also market to my in-house list of newsletter subscribers and via my social media (Twitter) account.

If you follow these steps, you can literally publish an eBook a week - and be on your way to creating your own ebook publishing empire.