Found out the other day, three of my Wordpress-Hosting blogs were suspended. I believe it was because they were too promotional. I am not upset with the service, it’s their service and their rules. They sure provide a great service and make some incredible free blogging software. I think I’d also say my hats off to them for creating a space, that is not all marketing, all the time.

I thought I posted some good content, with only 2-3 links per post. I am guessing my RSS feed in the side bar for my store was a little too much. I see many other blogs that have links, so can’t see how my lnks were the reason for my penalty. I’ve heard rumors, they did not like marketing, guess I proved the rumor.

Anyways, here’s another chance to learn from me, how I learned the hard way and avoid the mistakes I make. This is also very important to show, never put your important work anywhere that you do not have total control, it could all disappear into cyber space at any time.

Second lesson would be, don’t over market all the time. Some times just getting a link is all you can get, and that’s often good enough.

So, did you learn anything?

Any one else get their Worpdress blogs knocked off the net?

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Okay, while I’ve had a facebook account/profile for some time, I never put much into to, actually very little. Guess I had one just to have it.

Come to find out, Internet Marketers are really eating it up. Not hard to see why, as you it is a much better marketing tool compared to say, Myspace.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook become more popular than Myspace. They are not very far behind, Alexa lists them as the 8th largest site, just behind number 6 ranked Myspace.

It’s a marketers dream because you can, well actually market your business. You can add your blog feeds, form groups, add friends, list your websites and most importantly make contacts. You could even gather more Twitter followers by adding the app to your profile.

So what are you waiting for? At the very least get an account just to check out how marketers are using it to increase their business.

While your there, stop by my profile: Ron Killian and add yourself as a friend or just leave a message on the wall.

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The Triggers of Success: How to Trigger a Successful Sale
through the Power of Psychological Triggers

By Joseph Sugarman - Psychological Triggers

A desire to buy something often involves a subconscious
decision. In fact, I claim that 95% of buying decisions are
indeed subconscious.

Knowing the subconscious reasons why people buy, and using this
information in a fair and constructive way, will trigger
greater sales response — often far beyond what you could
imagine…

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What is Guerrilla Marketing?
by Mark Joyner

History is full of stories where tiny, unadvanced armies have
handily defeated better equipped and much larger armies.

The history of these battles is the history of guerrilla
warfare.

There are similar stories in business.

One example is that of the “Marlboro Man”. Before the Marlboro
Man, the Marlboro brand of cigarettes was ranked 31st - almost
rock bottom.

After the introduction of the Marlboro Man, and the guerrilla
branding campaign to promote it, Marlboro became the #1 brand in
a multi-billion dollar industry.

It may shock you how many of the “big business” names (that are
now household words) started out as struggling small businesses.

The history of the ascent of these icons is the history of
guerrilla marketing…

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Guerrilla Insights Into Direct Response
by Jay Conrad Levinson

Direct response marketing is a lot different from indirect
response marketing, although guerrillas like it best when the
two are teamed up. The first is geared to obtain orders right
here and right now. The second is geared to obtain orders
eventually. Although a fair amount of standard, indirect
marketing often is necessary to set the stage, to make prospects
ready to buy, and to separate your company from strangers, it’s
when you initiate direct marketing that you first taste blood.

As you well know, we are living in the Age of Information, most
of it very easy to obtain. But information is hardly enough for
a guerrilla. And information is not insight. It’s the
combination of information and thought that leads to insight and
it’s insight that’s going to make you a stand-out in the direct
response arena.

The first insight for you to absorb is that direct response
marketing either works immediately or not at all. Unlike
standard marketing which changes attitudes slowly and ultimately
leads to a sale if you go about things right, guerrilla direct
response marketing changes minds and attitudes instantly and
leads to a sale instantly if you go about things right.

When it works, you know it. You don’t have to sit around and
wonder. You don’t have to wait months and months for your
message to penetrate the mind of your prospect. Your time-dated
direct marketing offer either results in a sale right now — or
it doesn’t.

To succeed with direct marketing in any medium, remember always:

1. Your offer is omnipotent. The best presentation in the
world has a major uphill battle if you make a weak or ordinary
offer.

2. The market to whom you direct your message can make or break
your campaign. Saying the right thing to the wrong people
results in no sale.

3. What you say and how you say it is easily as important as to
whom you say it. Talk in terms of your prospects and how your
offer benefits them.

4. Carefully planning every cent of your campaign for maximum
profits requires as much creativity as your message. Guerrillas
excel at this.

5. The more that people have been exposed to your other
marketing, the more readily they’ll accept what you offer with
your direct marketing.

Some principles of indirect marketing apply to direct
marketing. You must still talk of the prospect, not yourself,
and you must make a clear and cogent offer. But from that
point on, direct marketing is a whole new ballgame. And its one
that you can win with the insights of the guerrilla.

Stupid mistakes in horrid abundance have been made by otherwise
bright companies when testing the direct response waters.
Fortunately, guerrillas can learn from these blunders, making
those waters a bit safer. Listing them would take an endless
series of books, but it’s worth your time if I make a start by
providing insight into ten of the most notable:

* Failure to attract attention at the outset dooms many
brilliant campaigns before they have a chance to shine.
Envelopes, opening lines, mail subject lines and first
impressions are the gates to your offer. Open them wide.

* Not facing the reality of a direct marketing explosion
relegates your attempt to the ordinary, which means the ignored.
Guerrillas say things to rise above the din, to be noticed and
desired in a sea of marketers.

* Focusing your message on yourself instead of your prospect
will usually send your effort to oblivion. Prospects care far
more about themselves than they care about you. So talk to them
about themselves.

* Not knowing precisely who your market is will send you into
the wrong direction. Research into pinpointing that market will
be some of the most valuable time you devote to your direct
marketing campaign.

* Mailing or telephoning to other than honest prospects wastes
your time and money. If you make your offer to people who don’t
really have a need for your offering, they’ll be an incredibly
tough sale.

* Initiating direct response marketing without specific
objectives gives you too hazy a target for bullseyes. Begin by
creating the response method for your prospects so you’ll know
what your message should say.

* Featuring your price before you stress your benefit will be
telling people what they don’t want to know yet. First, your
job is to make them want what you are offering, then you can
tell them the price.

* Concentrating on your price before your offer is wasting a
powerful selling point. Even if your price is the lowest,
people care more about how they’ll gain from purchasing. Give
your low price at the right time.

* Failing to test all that can be tested is a goof-off of the
highest order. Test your price points, opening lines, subject
lines, envelope teaser lines, benefits to stress, contact times
and mailing lists to know the real winners.

* Setting the wrong price means you’ve failed in your testing
and your research. Guerrillas are sensitive to their market and
their competition, testing prices and constantly subjecting them
to the litmus test of profits.

As direct response vehicles become more sophisticated and
prolific, guerrillas have the insight to zero in on the exact
people to contact, so as not to waste time or money on
strangers. Successful mailings to strangers net as high as two
percent response rates. Successful mailings to customers and
qualified prospects net up to ten percent. Precision leads to
profits.

Jay Conrad Levinson is the creator of the Guerrilla Marketing
series of books - the best selling series of business books in
history. He is also responsible for some of the most successful
ad campaigns in history, including *the* most successful in
history: The Marlboro Man. Jay is responsible for countless
small businesses becoming huge household names. Learn how he
does this in his latest book: “Guerrilla Marketing for the New Millennium“

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What do People Want Online? It’s not what you think it is.
by Jay Conrad Levinson - Marketing on Steroids

What people want online is a question guerrillas ask themselves
a lot. Whether it’s for fun or work or something else,
understanding a consumer’s motives once he or she logs on is a
necessity. But the experts don’t seem to agree on what people
want.

Some folks see the web as a vast, new field for advertising
messages, assuming that while people may want to do something
else, if we can entice them with flash, we can sort of trick them
into paying attention to our products and services.

Guess what. That’s not gonna happen.

Other folks seem to subscribe to the notion that people online
are looking for entertainment on the Internet, and therefore they
construct messages aimed at persuading while playing. And,
in other cases, the time-honored direct-response model wins out:
Grab people when you can, get ‘em to take an action, and then
market, market, market. The answer may be that the consumer has
and wants a lot more control than we give him/her credit for.

Today, webmeisters are in control. Sort of. In a perfect
cyberworld, people will be in control. Sort of.

Two recent studies shed light upon this dilemma. One was
conducted by Zatso. The other was conducted by the Pew Research
Center. Zatso and Pew. (Those guys didn’t spend much time
reading “how-to-name-your-company” books, I guess.) Still, both
of their studies illuminated the answer as to what people want
to do online.

The answer, as most answers, is very utilitarian: People want to
accomplish something online. They’re not aimless surfers hoping
to discover a cybertreasure. Instead, the average Net user turns
out to be a goal-oriented person interested in finding
information and communicating with others — in doing something
he or she set out to do.

Look at the Zatso study. “A View of the 21st Century News
Consumer” looked at people’s news reading habits on the web. It
revealed that reading and getting news was the most popular
online activity after email. The guerrilla thinks, “That means
email is number one. How might I capitalize on that?”

One out of three respondents reported that they read news online
every day, with their interests expanding geographically –
local news was of the most interest, U.S. news the least.

Personalization was seen as a benefit, too. Seventy-five percent
of respondents said that they wanted news on demand and nearly
two out of three wanted personalized news. The subjects surveyed
liked the idea that they, not some media outlet, controlled the
news they saw. They feel they’re better equipped to select what
they want to see than a professional editor. Again, control
seems to be the issue. Again, guerrillas think of ways to market
by putting the prospect in control.

The Pew Research Center study revealed that regular net users
were more connected with their friends and family than those who
didn’t use the Internet on a regular basis.

Almost two-thirds of the 3,500 respondents said they felt that
email brought them closer to family and friends — significant
when combined with the fact that 91% of them used email on a
regular basis. That’s 91%. It took VCRs 25 years to achieve such
market penetration.

What did people in this study seem to be doing online when they
weren’t doing email? Half were going online regularly to
purchase products and services, and nearly 75 percent were going
online to search for information about their hobbies or
purchases they were planning to make. Sixty-four percent of
respondents visited travel sites, and 62 percent visited
weather-related sites. Over half did educational research, and
54 percent were hunting for data about health and medicine.

A surprising 47 percent regularly visited government web sites,
and 38 percent researched job opportunities. Instant messaging
was used by 45 percent of these users, and a third of them
played games online. Even with all the hype in the media, only
12 percent said they traded stocks online.

What does this mean to e-marketers? It means that if you’re
constructing a site for goal-oriented consumers, you’d better
make sure you can help facilitate their seeking. Rather than
focus on entertainment, flash, and useless splash screens, the
most effective sites are those that help people get the
information they want when they need it. Straightforward data,
information that invites comparison, and straight talk are going
to win the day.

A client buddy of mine showed me his website which heralds his
retail location and attempts to sell nothing online. He said it
has been the biggest moneymaker in the history of his
35-year-old company. Then he apologized for its lack of glitter
and special effects. He asked how his site could be so
successful even though it lacked anything to add razzmatazz and
dipsydazzle.

Now, you know the answer.

======================

Jay Conrad Levinson is probably the most respected marketer in
the world. He is the inventor of “Guerrilla Marketing” and is
responsible for some of the most outrageous marketing campaigns
in history — including the “Marlboro Man” — the most
successful ad campaign in history. In his latest book, “Put
Your Internet Marketing on Steroids” Jay reveals how you can
use marketing steroids legally to make your business insanely
profitable with Marketing on Steroids.

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One company in particular seems to have a great hold on “cool”. Today I’m talking about Apple.

Can’t say my Ipod is really that much better than other mp3 players I’ve owned in the past. In fact I’ve come to believe that my last mp3 player had better sound and I know I had little trouble playing all my songs on the old one. Can’t say the same for the current player. But the new one is “cool”.

I could say the same for my cell phone, it does it’s job and works perfectly fine, but I must admit, I’ve got my eye on a new Iphone. Why? Well I could say it’s because it has all those great features (mine doesn’t even have a color screen), but honestly, I could probably live without it if I had to. My world would still keep going on, even without. I could get by, but again, it’s pretty cool.

Maybe it’s more than just a corner on “cool”, maybe it goes a little deeper? Such as, “we” would be cool if we had it. Hhmm.. interesting.

Could you make your product or service cool? Or make your customers feel cool for having your stuff? There’s always a way.

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Seems every day I see a commercial for yet another “new” cellphone. Am I the only one?

What’s amazing is that every “new” phone is still just a phone. In reality, do any of them really have some new feature that no other cell phone doesn’t have?

Nope.

Are they “cooler” than the rest?

You betcha.

Besides the Iphone (another story, another day), most every brand new phone is really not much different than the other 100 old ones. You can still make calls, maybe listen to music and possibly surf the web. Nothing new here. Except that it’s so “Cooler” and my teenage daughter has to have it and she wouldn’t be a “somebody” without it. Well, thats what they want you to think.

What are they doing? Repackaging, Redesigning and Re-Inventing. Does it work? Of course it does.

Do you have a product that has competition? Could you Re-Invent it? Repackage? Re-Design? Think it might make your sales rise?

Stimpy says it could. Guess it’s up to you.

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I am a avid reader, though I never seem to find enough time to read as much as I’d like. Even with a growing stack of yet-to-be-read books, I still find myself walking around Barnes and Noble, looking for yet another gem to add to my collection.

The reason for this post was my amazement at the checkout counter on a recent visit to my favorite bookstore. Of course the service was perfect, very helpful, friendly and happy to take my money, but it’s what the clerk did’nt do that surprised me. She did’nt put a bookmark in any of my newly purchased books. It got me to thinking, a major bookseller, second probably only to amazon, and they did’nt understand a perfect, little and inexpensive piece of marketing.

What better to remind me where I purchased my books? Every time I stop reading, I place a bookmark to keep track of my page. I’ll probably see that little piece of paper at least a few dozen times before I finish the book. Guess what? I start a new book and I’ll need a bookmark again. Not only a constant reminder, but a reusable one. How much better does it get? Well, my point, they don’t get it.

I have yet to figure out how to include a bookmark with an e-book, after all it is not a physical product. But how often can you remind your reader about yourself or your products and services in your next e-book or free report?

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I just read an article about marketing by Gary Simpson entitled, Rich Jerk, Poor Jerk. It talks about how certain marketers use almost abusive marketing tactics in an effort to sell their product. You’ve probably seen them, they are the ones that act as though they are better than you and the obvious fact that they are rich and you are not. Of course it’s all to grab attention, almost shock if you will. To get your attention and in an odd way, get you to buy their stuff. Sure not my way to trying to promote my products.

More and more lately I’ve been seeing so many people breaking the rules. I am talking about marketing rules or guidelines that have been around for ages. They have been around because they work, not in the short term, but long term.

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