Social media is hot.

It’s also one of the hottest refuges for scammers and BS artists.

I recently made the mistake of doing some pro bono work for a good cause run by amateurs. (Long story and a mistake I will never repeat. Not the pro bono part, the working with amateurs.)

Throughout the process, I was told that I must meet with this social marketing expert and that one, the idea being they have something of such great value to bring to the table that it’s more important than actually getting the job done. (These folks LOVE meetings. They don’t like work.)

Meanwhile, I patiently try to explain to these wing nuts that the only currency that means anything in Internet marketing, whether you’re selling something or promoting a great cause, is the size of your e-mail list (prospects and customers). Not how many “friends” you have, how many people “follow” you on Twitter, or how much chatter there is about you in the blogosphere.

Hey, I like Twitter and I know people who get some good things from Facebook, but I don’t know anyone who would trade a solid e-mail list to become king of Twitter or Facebook.

Conversely, I know plenty of social media masters who are one step away from living in a “van down by the river.” (Google it. If you don’t know the Saturday Night Live routine that phrase is from, you’re in for some serious laughter.)

Anyway, after listening the the millionth social media “genius” I took a look at some of my own social media stats. (My social media weapon of choice being video.)

Here are my numbers:

1. I’ve pushed one video over the 2,800,000 views mark
2. I’ve pushed two over the 1,200,000 views mark
3. I’ve pushed seventeen over the 100,000 view mark (sixteen singehandedly, one in partnership)

Total cash expenditure: zero dollars.

It was all accomplished by viral marketing, also know as “word of mouth” and all these hits were kicked off by mailing to an e-mail list. No Twitter. No Facebook.

I’m sure there are social media “gurus” who could turn these stats into speaking gigs at the latest social media conferences, television appearances, and books on how to “crush it.”

Me?

I’m very unimpressed by my own accomplishments.

Why?

I’m in SALES.

How many leads did I generate? How many sales did I close? How many people did I induce to come back and buy a second and third and fourth time?

Let’s get real folks.

Social media is gravy.

You better have some meat to put it on or you’re going to have an awfully sad dinner.

Focus on what matters.

Note: Why discussion on this blog is closed

Fast forward to the present: AdWords has revolutionized Internet marketing, formed the basis of thousands of successful businesses, and turned a small, profitless business (Google) into one of the biggest corporations on earth.

When the first comprehensive history of Internet marketing is written, Perry Marshall will be credited as the first person to put a flag in the ground and declare that not only was Google AdWords important, it was far more important than the then current state-of-the-art which at the time was Overture, formerly GoTo.com.

That was quite an huge mental leap back then and it took some deep thinking and courage of conviction to take that stand.

With an accomplishment like that…

What do you do for an encore?

Well, Perry has done plenty. Since first appearing on the scene, he’s continuously pushed the envelope on Internet marketing techniques, identified new trends and uncovered authentic Internet marketing talent.

Now Perry and Thomas Maloche have come out with the definitive book on Facebook advertising: The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising

I have to confess to being a Facebook skeptic. The things I’ve heard about Facebook as an advertising and marketing medium have just not been all that compelling. But as usual, Perry has dug deep – just the way he did with AdWords all those years ago – and come up with a treasure trove of actionable insights.

In my case, thanks to this new book, I realized that Facebook would be a fantastic lead generator for some businesses I own that are normally very difficult to buy leads for economically.

Key takeaway: Facebook is not for everyone. For some some businesses it can’t do much to help at all. But for others it can help mightily.

How can you tell if Facebook advertising is right for your business?

Perry’s created a simple quiz that will help you quickly assess if learning more about Facebook, and the intricasies of how to use it the right way, is worth your effort.

Click here for the quiz: http://isfbforme.com/

- Ken McCarthy

P.S. We did an in depth interview with Perry and Tom for this month’s System Club.

P.P.S. I’ll be on the road a few day so it may take a while for me to approve comments to this post. If you post something legitimate and it doesn’t appear, that’s why. Patience.

There’s a massive shortage of people who understand pay per click advertising, search engine optimization, tracking and testing, conversion and just plain crunching the numbers.

You can’t say I haven’t done my part.

What have we been doing since 1994?

We’ve brought people the best of the best in the hard disciplines of Internet marketing, the skills I’ve referred to for at least 12 years as “the plumbing.”

It’s not glamorous stuff, but folks who make the effort and take the time to learn these things can literally write their own ticket.

So what do people do instead?

They chase the guru, fad and/or whiz bang marketing trick of the month.

As usual, the New York Times is a little slow to pick up on reality, but they’ve finally joined the party:

Advertising companies fret over a digital talent gap

- Ken McCarthy

I haven’t kept count, but this month alone with my various Internet properties, it adds up to close to 5 million.

As you can imagine, we’re keen to keep my accounts and relationship with my mailing vendor AWeber in good order. Besides the fact that we’ve been using them for years and years, they also happen to have a very easy-to-use interface, a very useful set of built-in tools, and a very affordable service.

So how can you screw that up?

The first answer is by doing something wrong like spamming. That can and will – and should –  get you shut down in a flash.

But can you get your account shut down by accident?

To paraphrase the current rent-free occupant of the White House…Yes you can.

Here are two absolutely innocent ways to go wrong:

Method #1. You see a website you’re really like and you want to tell your subscribers about it. Unbeknownst to you, the owners of the domain the website runs on have managed to terminally piss off AWeber at some point.

When you send your first test e-mail (and you do send test e-mails I hope before you blast your entire list!), the AWeber system will detect that you are mailing on behalf of a domain they consider a bad player and they will take note.

Method #2. Let’s say new hire a new writer/editor for one of your sites and he is new to aweber.

He notes the signature and the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the e-mails your publication sends. So far so good.

Because he is diligent, he manually appends the signature and the unsubscribe link of the last e-mail he received from the last issue on the end of the e-mails he sends out on your behalf.

How big a problem could that be?

Answer: A HUGE problem.

Here’s why…AWeber creates a unique unsubscribe URL for every individual subscriber to your list. That way, when subscribers click on the unsubscribe, they are taken straight to their own personal control panel where they can either change their subscription or unsubscribe entirely.

What happens if there are TWO unsubscribe links and one of them, inconveniently the one that appears first, is the one your newly hired writer/editor copied and pasted from an e-mail sent to him?

Can you see the problem? People who want to unsubscribe will click on the  wrong link, think they have unsubscribed, then continue to get e-mails they, for whatever reason, no longer want to receive.

And no matter how often they click on that link and no matter how many e-mails they receive and click on the link, they will never be able to unsubscribe.

This is a near perfect recipe for pissing off a subscriber… Actually LOTS of subscribers. And that is not a good thing to do.

To make matters worse, no matter how many times your writer/editor re-subscribes to the publication he’s writing for, he will always be unsubscribed by somebody or other within minutes of sending out the latest mailing and will never see the problem.

Get it?

Here’s the rub:  e-mail scammers sometimes try to abuse systems like aweber by signing up for an account and DELIBERATELY inserting a bogus unsubscribe link.

Whether you do this by accident or as part of a nefarious scheme, aweber has no choice but to shut your account down to protect their sterling fourteen year record of being a reliable source of  legitimate e-mail broadcasts.

It’s something I’ve never  experienced personally or even heard about in 18 years of sending e-mails, but as the old saying goes, there’s a first time for everything – and guess who learned this one the hard way  :-)

But all’s well that ends well.

Fortunately, I have a long, deep and very public track record so we were able to sort things out once we got to the bottom of what happened, but for someone newer, without an established record, this might have been a very difficult thing to resolve.

Moral of the story: Pay attention to your outgoing e-mail, even if it looks OK on first glance.

- Ken

P.S.  We discuss important, but non-glamorous, issues like this every month on our private Tech Talk call for members of the System Club.

If you think about it, it’s actually very hard to find detailed, comprehensive, unbiased conversations about the realities of the tools and technology that Internet businesses run on.

Everyone wants to ram the latest sure-fire, gee-whiz, gotta-have-it mystery tool down your throat in this month’s latest “Launch.”

In contrast, few want to take the time to talk about the mechanical realities of Internet marketing and the universe of effective tools that not only greatly out-power the hyped ones, but often cost far less.

P.P.S. It’s easy to take a service like AWeber for granted, but go out there and try to replicate what they do at the price they do it. Not so easy. They’re one of the best values in the business.

For information about The System Club and the Tech Talk program for System Club members, click here.

There is a lot to learn from watching this short video.

First, there’s the all-important lesson that everybody who “gets there” gets there the same way: by putting on their pants, or in this case gym shorts, one leg at a time.

Obviously, the scale and scope of Facebook has changed dramatically since the time of this interview.

New money, new expertise, and new ambition has poured in.

But look at where Mark Zuckerberg started.

He didn’t start out with the ambition to make billions of dollars. He also was not thinking about creating a service that would be so huge it would challenge even Google in traffic.

The answer is very simple and it’s the answer to everything: he focused on getting what was in front of his face at the moment right.

I detect no wild ambition, no intoxication with the fantasy of limitless riches, no rush to bring something to market ready or not.

Instead, I see a guy who just picked up his tools everyday, worked on his blueprint, and took pains to get it right.

I know this flies in the face of typical “get rich quick” seminar bullshit, especially the famous “shoot, ready, aim” method that students of a certain type of “guru” are encouraged to follow.

The truth is that nothing goes right the first time, but the idea that you can build a lasting success with a “sell first and get the quality right later” approach is a great way to fail.

That being said, it certainly is possible to package and sell things, even at high prices, that are not ready for market. You can even make money launching products, selling a lot of them, and then abandoning support for the product, which is another way of saying screwing your customers.

Yes you can do it, but it’s…

Unfortunately, this approach has become the new normal in the Internet marketing education world, so much so that I find that some among the new generation of would-be educators don’t even realize there’s another way to do things.

This is bad for the marketplace, it’s very bad for people who are trying to learn Internet marketing, and it’s a stupid and shortsighted way of doing things.

Big spikes of income from episodic hyped up promotions of products that have no basis in reality does not make a business.

Businesses are built on selling products and services. Products and services that do what they say they are going to do and are supported and improved when they don’t.

“We wanted to make sure it was going to work before going any further with it.” – Mark Zuckerberg.

After getting a good results from a test at one school, he didn’t roll it out to the world. He tested it at just three schools.

After those three schools continued to prove the concept, then he rolled it out to 29 schools.

Then, he geared up to launch the service to schools around the world. Not the world. Just the world’s schools.

I asked him some pointed questions to focus him on the things that matter and directed him to another friend who knows his industry very well and might be able to give him some pointers.

Then I recommended he have a laugh. Something we can all use more of.

The future of social media… (click on the image to start the video)

If you’re wondering what the next decade is going to bring for Internet marketing, consider this:

At the end of the last decade…

* Dotcom stocks were heading straight up in one of the biggest orgies of manic stock buying the world has ever seen

* Banner ads were selling at massive (and irrational) premiums

* Pay-per-click advertising (then offered by just one company, GoTo.com) was considered an oddity

* Yahoo was the 800 pound gorilla in Internet media

What a difference ten years can make

Today:

* The NASDAQ still hasn’t come even close to recovering its Year 2000 heights

* Banner ads are sanely priced

* Yahoo appears totally hopeless

* Pay-per-click advertising (mainly in the form of Google AdWords) has taken over the world

Crazy times

I was there ten years ago.

Actually, I was there seventeen years ago (1993) when I started making my first tentative experiments online. I had the once-in-a-lifetime thrill of witnessing and participating in the birth of a new medium.

But all was not sunny in Internet Land.

By 1998, I reached a point of total bafflement at what was going on in San Francisco and Silicon Valley in the Internet industry I helped pioneer.

People I knew to be hopeless idiots and in some cases outright scammers were being helped by New York investment banks like Goldman Sachs to loot billions of dollars from the stock market by selling shares in companies so loony that they defied belief.

That year, the fall of 1998, I voted with my feet, said “bye” to the Bay Area digerati crowd (who thought I was nuts) and moved back east to the sleepy, beautiful and then low-priced Hudson Valley to wait for the inevitable.

A year and a few months later, New Year’s Eve 1999, I watched in amazement as Internet shares that were already insanely priced went straight up.

Then it all fell apart

By the end of 2000, Internet companies were vanishing in droves.

Companies valued at hundreds of dollars per share were selling for pennies…if they were still in business at all. And as the months progressed, the implosion became more and more severe.

When I went back to San Francisco in 2003 after having been away for nearly five years, it was like a neutron bomb had hit the place. The buildings were still standing, but the people – and the companies – were gone.

In the middle of the wreckage, I did something that a lot of people thought was crazy. In 2001, I started working on a new Internet marketing training. In 2002, I launched it.

It was called the System Seminar.

The turn around

I created the System Seminar with a simple premise…

In spite of the crash of bogus Internet companies, the Internet itself was as solid as a rock – and it was going to grow, this time for real.

How could I be so sure?

For the same reason, I was willing to risk substantial time, money, energy and my reputation for sanity by putting on the first web marketing conference ever (November 1994, San Francisco.)

This time around though, things were going to be different.

The big change

The big change – and we built it right into the very first System Seminar – was that Internet advertising was going to be based on careful calculations of ROI (return on investment.)

In a way, this was nothing new. Old school direct marketers have been tracking the profitability of their ad buys for decades.

But this was a brand new concept to many on the Internet.

It’s hard to believe now, ten years after the fact, but it’s true. Before the System Seminar, only a handful of scrappy Internet entrepreneurs were tracking anything besides “hits” and the cost of banner ads.

I’m not going to take credit for the massive sea change that’s taken place in the last ten years

But I will take credit for being the first to put it on the line to teach this approach as the only one that makes sense for Internet marketers when nearly everyone else was still talking about “branding” and “mindshare.”

The big change – Part Two

In 2002 (2001 actually if you count our early beta trainings), the System Seminar was the only place on earth where you could learn an integrated approach to Internet marketing…

…One that combined smart online media buying and careful results tracking with “old school” smarts like direct response copywriting and list management.

From the very beginning, our focus was on pay-per-click. We even mentioned Google AdWords at our first seminar, even though it had only just launched and no one really understood how it worked yet.

Fast forward a few years and two of the attendees at that first System seminar (both then total PPC “newbies”) wrote what have become the two definitive books on the subject (See Perry Marshall’s “Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords” and Howie Jacobson’s “Google AdWords for Dummies.”)

Thanks to its PPC revenues, some say that Google is poised to take over the earth.

Not so fast Google

Here’s what absolutely won’t change in the coming decade:

* The Internet will continue to be a central part of hundreds of millions of people’s lives. If anything, it will become even more central as the Internet solidifies its position as the “central switching station” for all media: text, audio, video, buying, selling, communicating, chatting, gossiping etc.)

* Consumers will continue to seek VALUE in their purchases and if my crystal ball is working, they will be even more militant about getting value for their money in the years to come.

* Advertisers – the ones who are going to survive that is – are going to become even more sophisticated about tracking their results and making sure they get the best possible value for their money.

What this is going to look like is smart Internet marketers diversifying away from Google AdWords.

AdWords will continue to be an important part of the mix, but anyone who is not taking energetic, aggressive steps to free themselves from dependence on Google for their traffic is going to have cause for regret.

Strategy for System 2010

I’ve been writing ad copy since I was in high school and started paying the rent with my efforts back in the mid 1980s.

I am a serious student of the game.

Copywriting is the switch that turns raw traffic into money.

I don’t know how to state it forcefully enough but here goes: Traffic is worthless without masterful conversion and conversion is just a fancy word for ad copy, so in a very real way the whole game of Internet marketing boils down to copywriting.

In all the noise about Twitter, Facebook and other “mindshare building tools” a lot of internet marketers have lost sight of what matters in Internet marketing.

To bring us all back to reality in 2010, I’m bringing in two Big Guns of the copywriting world to System 2010 – both multi-decade veterans who write real ad copy for real companies selling real products to real people. Both master teachers…

But don’t take my word for it. They’re both published authors with their books continuously in print: Bob Bly from the US and Drayton Bird from the UK. Google them.

The other piece of the puzzle: traffic

Great copywriting, as important as it is, is not enough.

You need the second part of the equation: traffic.

I’m a big fan of SEO, article marketing, JVs, viral marketing and all the other “free” ways you can drive traffic on the Internet. Over the years, we’ve offered scores of trainings and master classes on these subjects.

But none of these methods can hold a candle to the simple, reliable method of simply buying the traffic you need.

If you want to maximize your potential on the Internet, buying traffic is where it’s at.

Here’s why:

Buying traffic lets you turn on the traffic you need right now, not weeks and month from now.

If you’re already a traffic buyer you already know that Internet traffic is the Eighth Wonder of the world.

You can buy a little, test it, amplify what works and turn off what doesn’t.

It takes skill, know-how and paying attention, but knowing how to buy Internet traffic comes as close to money-on-demand as anything on earth.

Why it’s so hard to get good information about traffic buying

Two facts:

1. There are no “old” traffic buyers. Not yet, anyway.

Most of the traffic sources that matter today (like pay-per-click) weren’t even around ten years ago.

2. People who are good at traffic buying generally don’t teach.

Traffic buying is a demanding and lucrative specialty. Taking time away from the main event to teach it to others is not something most traffic buyers ever think of doing, let alone are willing to make the serious effort to do.

That’s where the System Seminar has a major leg up over every other Internet marketing training.

Just as people like Perry Marshall and Howie Jacobson were motivated by their experience as System Seminar students to document and share what they learned about AdWords, the new generation of System-inspired Internet marketers is ready and willing to do the same with what they’ve learned about the nut and bolts of buying traffic today…in 2009, soon to be 2010.

Our System 2010 traffic faculty

For the first time ever, we’ll have traffic buyers on this year’s System faculty who have spent (and continue to spend) and track millions of dollars of their own money on Internet ad buys: Greg Davis, who specializes in high volume mass appeal consumer offers and Ben Moskel who specializes in a highly competitive niche where traffic costs are at a premium.

Both are real-world experts in uncovering new traffic sources, testing them, and figuring out how to make them pay. Their knowledge is not theoretical – and you won’t find it in any book or course. It’s based on the market as it is right now.

To round out our faculty, Google-certified Timothy Seward of ROI Revolution who guides the purchase of tens of millions of dollars a year in traffic for over seventy companies, will share his perspective on what’s working today, where things are headed, and what it takes to maximize the profits of an Internet business.

Steal this seminar

If you’re reading this before January 1, 2010, you have the chance to get all this cutting-edge knowledge at a bargain basement price.

Every year, we make the System Seminar available to people who can make an early decision to get a bargain price.

If you’re an Internet marketer and you’re already buying traffic for your business, System 2010 will be some of the best time and money you’ve ever spent.

If you’re looking to make the leap into Internet traffic buying, System 2010 will:

a) show you what’s really involved (no sugar coating),
b) cut months if not years off your learning curve, and
c) help you get where you want to go faster without making expensive mistakes.

The fact is one wrong move in traffic buying can easily cost you several multiples of the price of System Seminar 2010. (You may even be making an expensive traffic buying mistake right now and not even realize it.)

Our traffic buying faculty has already made most of the big, dumb, expensive mistakes so you don’t have to.

Even more important, they’ve dug up traffic sources and refined tracking methods that are practically guaranteed to improve your bottom line.

Early Bird Registration Deadline: December 31, 2009

How much for this hard won, can’t-be-found-anywhere-else knowledge?

For the multi-decade experience of two master direct response copywriters with hundreds of campaigns each under their belts…

For the rough and tumble know-how of two master multi-million dollar traffic buyers…

For the insights of one of the sharpest Internet campaign advisors in the business, certified by Google…

And for the insight of yours truly, the guy who’s been at this now for seventeen years, consistently finding you the right people at the right time for your next right move?

Check it out.

You may be pleasantly surprised at how affordable all this is when you’re an early bird.

But do it by midnight December 31, 2009.

Details:

http://www.TheSystemSeminar.com

Ken

P.S. Happy New Year!

I was once interviewed my someone (a serious marketer) who before he started the recording asked if it was OK if he mentioned John Caples.

“Of course!” I replied. “Why do you ask?”

His answer was one of those things that initially shocked but did not surprise me…”Because half of the Internet marketing ‘experts’ I interview these days won’t let me mention anything that they can’t earn a commission from.”

That, sadly, sums up the state-of-affairs in much of what is called Internet marketing “education” today.

It’s a jungle out there. Choose your advisors wisely. Some have a vested interest in you not knowing what’s going on.

Be all you can be. Read.

Whether you’re the rawest new beginner or a seasoned pro with years under your belt, there are two things you need to know about Internet marketing:

1. Internet marketing is direct marketing
2. There is a gold mine of information on the subject contained in the many excellent books real marketing experts have written over the years

I know of no better way to accelerate your progress while at the same time improving your BS detector than to read – and continuously read – the books I call the Classics.

The secret, “they” hope you never find out

I try to spend at least 15 to 20 minutes every day going over one or more of these books.

It may not seem like much time, but it adds up.

Just 20 minutes a day is over two hours a week which is over 100 hours a year. That’s a brain changing (and life changing) chunk of time. I’ve been doing it for over twenty years myself.

As I’ve told all my students since Day One and repeat at every System Seminar: “Soak your brains in these books.They will change your life.”

You can do this – and why you should

This list could be much longer, but ten is plenty. In fact, any one of these books has the power to be life changing for you.

No matter what your budget of time and/or money, you can afford this “program.” In fact, I’d say nobody, no matter how much they already know, can afford not to do it.

The most successful marketers I know are invariably the most serious readers – and the very best ones never stop.

My Top Ten Reading List

1. My Life in Advertising – Claude Hopkins
2. Tested Advertising Methods – John Caples (Fourth edition or earlier)
3. How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling – Frank Bettger
4. Scientific Advertising – Claude Hopkins
5. How to Write a Good Advertisement – Victor Schwab
6. My First Sixty Years in Advertising – Maxwell Sackheim
7. Secrets of Successful Direct Mail – Richard Benson
8. Breakthrough Advertising – Eugene Schwartz
9. The Robert Collier Letter Book – Robert Collier
10. Common Sense Direct and Digital Marketing – Drayton Bird

While some of these books are hard to find, many are readily available in low cost editions.

Reading just one will make your year. Making them a part of your day will change your life.

The real secret of marketing success

Successful marketing comes from developing a way of thinking.

It’s not a the result of a bag of tricks and it’s certainly won’t come from a “coaching” program sold out of high pressure telephone boiler room.

Success is largely a do-it-yourself process.

It helps a lot if you have someone close to you who can show you the ropes. I didn’t. So I read.

By reading, I gradually found the real experts who knew what they were talking about.

I’m not saying I never went down a wrong path or was never fooled by a personable con artist. I have been. Plenty of times. But because of these books, even in the worst of times, I’ve always had a reliable rudder which has kept me on course.

Be all you can be. Read.

Best,

Ken

P.S. Our annual System Seminar is rooted in the direct marketing classics.

This year, we’ll be meeting April 9 through 11 and as has been true for the last five years our meeting will be in Chicago.

I picked Chicago as our annual “headquarters” because the Chicago area has the biggest concentration of direct marketers in the world. More even than New York.

It’s the place Claude Hopkins and Maxwell Sackheim, the guys who practically invented direct marketing, cut their teeth.

You can read all about this year’s faculty and the subjects we’ll be covering here: Click here for more information

That’s the one word that came up over and over again in the largest, open-ended survey of Internet marketers we’ve ever conducted.

We didn’t expect it.

Heck, we weren’t even looking for a “Word of the Year”, but it came up so often – in nearly one out of every five responses! – that we had to pay attention.

Unexpected, but maybe not so surprising

2009 was the year that every Internet marketer had to start “Tweeting” and “Facebooking” and learning 99 different Twitter and Facebook management tools.

I’m exaggerating, but only just barely. I read a blog post recently by an otherwise intelligent person who revealed her fifteen favorite Twitter management tools.

And she uses all of them.

This may be a good thing if you’re a professional Twitter consultant (yes, there are such things), but what about the rest of us?

For many years, I only needed two tools to make money on the Internet: FTP and an auto-responder.

Now, supposedly, it takes fifteen tools just to properly manage a Twitter account.

This can’t be good for focus – or for making money.

“Is social media dangerous to your wealth?”

I almost wrote an article with this title (still might) because social media has clearly become a problem for a lot of marketers.

So many folks have become so busy “building their brand” and “generating a buzz”, they’ve lost track that we’re in the business of selling.

That ugly four letter word: S-E-L-L.

Marketers don’t seem to want to use it any more.

It seems so crass, so…twentieth century.

Well, if selling is old fashioned, then call me a relic because the last time I checked, I can’t deposit brand or buzz in my bank account. I can only deposit dollars and dollars are generated by sales.

What to focus on

If you want to make money, here is my #1 piece of advice.

It hasn’t changed in twenty years.

I doubt it will change in the next twenty.

Focus on markets

For my purposes – and please read this definition closely because a lot of people screw it up:

A market is: “A collection of people who are already buying something, like what you plan to sell, who you can reach economically and with existing media.”

Every word in that definition matters and I hope you read it again s-l-o-w-l-y and give weight to every word.

There’s a fortune to be had it getting it right…and a fortune to lose in getting it wrong.

Learning a million and one groovy marketing techniques without having a market to sell into is like collecting and studying sex manuals without having a partner. Interesting, but not likely to produce much meaningful action.

So, if you don’t have a market, get one now and start doing something with it.

What to do with a market

Post relevant comments to forums and blogs…talk to people in the market…write articles that solve problems…create relevant reports…give your best material away in exchange for e-mail addresses…recommend good affiliate offers to your subscribers…source and/or develop your own products and offer them…track your results…get rid of stuff that doesn’t work and repeat things that do.

In other words, get cracking.

Less study and more action.

How do you build a list of prospects?

One bloody name at a time and the sooner you get started the better. Whining about how hard it is not going to make it happen any faster.

My mind boggles at the number of new “Internet marketers” I’ve met in recent months who twitter like rock stars – but have not collected a single e-mail address.

Focus on “traffic + conversion”

Eight years ago, when I came out of retirement to start teaching Internet marketing again, I was frustrated by all the looney marketing advice being dispensed back then that had seemingly fatally scrambled the brains of many of my students.

In exasperation, I blurted out:

“Forget all that garbage. There are only two things you should be focusing on: traffic and conversion. If you’re doing anything else, you are wasting your time. Traffic plus conversion equals profits!”

It seems so obvious now, but if you Google all the Internet marketing “how to” advice from back in 2002, you won’t find this anywhere. Heck, you’ll barely find it now – unless you’re at a System Seminar.

Some things never change

Here’s the weird thing: most Internet marketers still don’t focus on traffic + conversion.

But we do – every year – year in and year out. Relentlessly.

And that simple fact may be the reason we have more successful students than any twenty “gurus” combined.

It’s also why so many people who start with us as raw beginners – Perry Marshall, Lloyd Irvin, Howie Jacobson, Kim Dushinski, Ben Moskel, and many others – not only end up teaching on our faculty, but on the faculties of marketing seminars and conferences around the country (and world.)

Everything that’s taught at the System Seminar has to pass through the “traffic + conversion” BS detector.

If it doesn’t help you to get more traffic or help you convert your traffic better, we don’t waste your time or ours with it.

A special message for beginners

I consider a “beginner” anyone who isn’t making his full time living from Internet marketing, hasn’t cracked $100,000 a year in online sales, and/or can’t see the path to $1,000,000 a year in sales.

I know a lot of people don’t like to consider themselves “beginners”, but Internet marketing, the way we teach it at the System, is a reality-based business.

Know-how has zero value unless it’s being employed.

Yes, we’d love to see you at System 2010, but I’m even more interested in seeing you have a complete grasp of the foundation of our business.

The reality of Internet marketing

Internet marketing is a lot like plumbing. It’s 95% grit and 5% glamour. (The glamour is the part where you go to the bank.)

Too many beginners have been sold the idea that there is some special “magic” in Internet marketing that lets Internet marketers defy the laws of economic reality.

Sorry. It doesn’t work this way.

Internet marketing is a profession. It requires comprehensive knowledge as a foundation and then relentless action.

In my experience 99.9% of the people who think they “know” Internet marketing have holes in their basic knowledge big enough to drive several trucks through.

The proof of this is their incomes – or the lack thereof.

Hang in there

I’m not saying this as a put down. I’m saying it because it’s the reality I see.

Keep in mind I’ve been marketing online since 1993 – and before that I’ve been using direct marketing to make my living since 1984.

I have no way to prove this, but I think I’ve trained more successful Internet marketers than any living person.

I didn’t accomplish this by chasing fads or selling smoke. My “secret” has been that I insist on drilling the fundamentals.

The good news is this is a learnable business.

Further good news is the fact that the vast majority of people marketing on the Internet refuse to treat the business as a business.

That’s why every year we have new success stories to report.

Because most market places, crowded as they are, are full of dilettantes, which is a fancy word for “wannabes” – folks who like to play at it, but fade when serious people like System grads show up.

If Internet marketing has been a “dream” for you, here’s what I recommend for you in 2010…

FOCUS

If you’re a beginner…

Focus on firming up your fundamentals.

Make 2010 the year you’re going to treat Internet marketing like a business (95% grit and 5% glory.)

We’ve got a course to help. It’s both comprehensive and cost effective – and you can apply 100% of the cost to a System Seminar tuition.

It’s called System Smart Beginners. Click here for more information about it

If you’re a pro…

There’s only one Internet marketing training I know that focuses on traffic + conversion.

There’s a reason pros like Perry Marshall and Lloyd Irvin never miss a System whether they happen to be on the faculty of not in a given year.

This year, because of the extreme business challenges so many are facing these days, we’re drilling down even deeper than normal.

On the conversion side, we’re bringing in the truly big guns: Bob Bly and Drayton Bird. (If you don’t recognize the names, Google them.)

On the traffic side, we’ve got Timothy Seward (Google certified and advisor to numerous multi-million dollar a year online businesses); Ben Moskel, a seven figure a year affiliate marketer, and Greg Davis, a seven figure a year, CPA marketer.

All three have bought (or advised on the buying of) millions of dollars worth of Internet traffic – and tracked the results…selling real products to real people in real markets.

If you’re a pro, you should seriously consider joining us in Chicago this April 9 through 11, 2010 in Chicago.

If you already know you’re going to join us, registering before the end of this year will save you considerable money on your tuition. ‘

(Super “early bird” tuition discount deadline: December 31, 2009)

Click on this link for more information about: The System Seminar

Best wishes for the coming new year,

Ken

P.S. Focus.

What are you going to focus on in 2010.

If you’re an Internet marketer, I hope it’s traffic + conversion.

That’s what we focus on every year, this year more than ever at System 2010.

Click on this link for more information about: The System Seminar

These quotes might be particularly useful to Internet marketers and marketers of all kinds. I’ve added commentary to each one to help

Be original

“Don’t borrow someone else’s plan. Develop your own plan and it will lead you to unique places.”

My comment: This is why I don’t sell or promote so-called “businesses in a box.” Even if they work, and they rarely do, they practically guarantee mediocrity.

Be prepared to work

“Economic disaster comes from a philosophy of doing less and wanting more.”

My comment: The gurus who sell push-button, auto-pilot, lay-in-your-hammock plans are misguiding their students in a very profound way.

Think

“The best place to solve a problem is on paper.”

My comment: Money is not made with expensive tools. It’s made with the thinking behind the tools and for that, paper and pencil are the most sophisticated problem solving tools there are.

Truth matters

“It only takes one lie to taint your entire testimony.”

My comment: Too many of the “gurus” confuse lying with marketing. Don’t follow them. They’re all headed off a cliff. They just don’t know it yet.

How to sell

“To succeed in sales. simply talk to lots of people.”

My comment: This is what makes direct marketing and Internet marketing so miraculous. It leverages the number of people you can reach massively. The more you tell, the more you sell.

Success 101

“Learn to hide your need and show your skill.”

My comment: Too many beginners get this one completely backward. Developing skills and making your skill available is the best way to take care of your needs. Don’t be a beggar.

More Success 101

“Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems; wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenges; wish for more wisdom.”

My comment: I can’t add anything to add to the clarity of this advice.

Reality check

“You must get good at one of two things; sowing in the spring or begging in the fall.”

My comment: In the end, it’s all about what you do, or don’t do.

Wisdom in three words

“Plant, don’t chant.”

My comment: I love this one. Action is the ultimate prayer. It’s the ultimate affirmation.

More wisdom in ten

“Start with wherever you are and with whatever you’ve got.”

My comment: The seed of greatness lies in this simple advice.

Yes!

“Be a student, not a follower.”

My comment: The System Seminar has students, not followers. That’s why our students are exponentially more successful than the attendees of other programs.

Obvious

“Success is the study of the obvious. Everyone should take Obvious 101 and Obvious 201 in school.”

My comment: There are no secrets. There are just people who pay attention and people who don’t.

Time

“Time is the best kept secret of the rich.”

My comment: Time is the only raw material we have for building wealth. Waste it or fail to leverage it and you’re throwing away your fortune.

Too busy? Why?

“Don’t mistake movement for achievement. It’s easy to get faked out by being busy. The question is: Busy doing what?”

My comment: Every busy person would profit from reading this one daily. Every day.

It works

“There are no new fundamentals.”

My comment: In sports, in art, in business, a handful of deep principles do all the heavy lifting. They’re not necessarily sexy ideas – except to the wise.

Read!

“Miss a meal if you have to, but don’t miss a book.”

My comment: To fail to take advantage of the miraculous world of books is the most expensive failing imaginable.

Reality check

“Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion.”

My comment: Talk less, do more. A scary number of people get this one wrong.

Econ 101

“Profits are better than wages. Wages make you a living; profits make you a fortune.”

My comment: The best explanation of how the world of money works I’ve ever heard.

Deep

“We all have two choices: We can make a living or we can design a life.”

My comment: What are we working for? To live. To live to work is a tragedy, a common tragedy.

I’m here to help. I’m with the government

“Beware of those who seek to take care of you lest your caretakers become your jailers.”

My comment: The less you have to do with “government programs,” the happier you’ll be.

Search

“If you wish to find, you must search. Rarely does a good idea interrupt you.”

My comment: Real learning and progress is an intensely active process.

Ignorance is not bliss for long

“What do don’t know will hurt you.”

My comment: The average person revels in being ignorant. Don’t join them.

How to be more

“Don’t join an easy crowd; you won’t grow.”

My comment: The System Seminar attracts a friendly crowd, but it’s not an “easy” one. Another reason why our students accumulate wealth while others accumulate closets full of books and tapes.

The power of a good idea

“If you share a good idea long enough, it will eventually fall on good people.”

My comment: It takes time to sell any idea no matter how good. Don’t give up too soon. You will find people who get it, but only if you stick with it.

Two kinds of learning

“Some people have learned to earn well but they haven’t learned to live well.”

My comment: You’ll be happiest when you learn both – and it is a learning. There’s nothing automatic about either.

Reality check

“Leaders must not be naive. I used to say, “Liars shouldn’t lie.” What a sad waste of words that is! I found out liars are supposed to lie. That’s why we call them liars — they lie! What else would you expect them to do?”

My comment: Give everyone the benefit of the doubt at first, but test people’s honesty in small ways before you put a big trust in them. Lying is common, but don’t tolerate it. People who lie about small things will surely lie about large ones too. Get them out of your life fast – and don’t wonder why.

Simple

“The twin killers of success are impatience and greed.”

My comment: When a guru tells you that you can make big money without time and effort, you can assume he’s lying. Focus on the value you create and success will take care of itself.

These quotes come from a wonderful book called “The Treasury of Quotes” by Jim Rohn.