Yesterday, my husband and I had a little chat about Internet marketing products - ebooks, programs, systems, courses, etc - aimed at teaching you how to perform some aspect of Internet marketing. This, in turn, led to a discussion about ‘the dirty little secret of Internet marketing products’…

Now, Simon is a rather skeptical guy. And he generally shies away from any kind of ‘how to make money online’ product. That said, he has certainly invested in a number of products over the years that, while not promising to turn you into a millionaire overnight, teach practical skills e.g. how to do Google Adwords, how to do search engine optimization, and so on.

So, I guess he’s that breed of Internet marketing customer that is turned OFF by cheesy headlines. I’m similar, but since I’m more familiar with who’s who in Internet marketing I’m probably not as skeptical as he is about certain things (although I’m probably more skeptical about others!).

When it comes to high profile Internet marketing products, Simon says that, by default, he doesn’t believe most of the claims made in sales letters and other promotional materials.

And that’s where we differ. Depending on the Internet marketing product in question - and, in particular, the Internet marketer behind the product - my default position is that I DO believe the claims made in the sales letter.

But here’s the thing: while I believe that so-and-so Internet marketing guru probably made the money they said they did by following the system or using the program they’re selling… I also think there’s a rather significant piece of information missing from the sales letter.

It’s the dirty little secret of all, if not most, Internet marketing products, and it’s simply this: for the system or program to work… YOU have to work.

YOU have to roll up your sleeves and put time, sweat, tears and perhaps even money into learning, understanding and applying the steps… YOU have to persist when the program or system doesn’t yield instant results… YOU have to innovate when, for whatever reason, the cookie cutter approach is no longer effective.

Search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, copywriting, affiliate marketing, article marketing… they all require work!

Now, admittedly, there IS an alternative to you doing work. It’s called: paying someone else to do the work.

But even that doesn’t let you off the hook. Having worked purely as a consultant to at least one large organization where just about every aspect of Internet marketing is outsourced to various different agencies, I can honestly say there is STILL a lot of work to be done.

Coming up with new ideas… strategic planning… managing all the agencies… evaluating their results… reporting to other parts of the business… troubleshooting… and that’s just SOME of what the Internet marketing people do. It doesn’t even approach what everyone else does in the business - producing the products, delivering customer support, building the business, and so on.

So if we need to do work - and often a lot of work - to achieve the results so-and-so Internet marketing guru has achieved… why don’t they tell us that in the sales letter?

Well, firstly, if you read through the sales letters put out by the most respected Internet marketers you’ll see that some DO actually mention that work is involved. They might say something along the lines of “Don’t read this unless you’re serious about making 7 figures this year and are prepared to do what it takes to make it…”

But that doesn’t sound too much like hard work does it? I mean it’s not as if the copy says “Don’t read this unless you’re serious about making 7 figures this year and are prepared to: stop watching TV, halve the time you normally spend with family and friends, work at least 60 hours per week, cold-call at least 10 people a day…”

(Am I exaggerating? Well, depending on the aim of the Internet marketing product in question, I’m just touching the surface…)

That said, there are two main reasons why Internet marketing product sales letters - and, indeed, sales letters for most other ‘how-to’ products - don’t and SHOULD NOT emphasize the work involved.

Firstly, as indicated above, you CAN indicate that work is involved without needing to spell it out. Anyone who’s hot for your product will still see what they want to see, and will likely skim over the ‘work’ bit and focus on the ‘end result’ bit.

Secondly, what IS selling if it’s not harnessing the prospect’s emotions - their hopes, desires, fears, etc - in order to persuade them to take a certain action step (e.g. buy your product). You’re not seriously going to do anything - like talk about how hard it is to make your system work - that sabotages your ability to sell, are you?

I mean, does anyone really expect ads for Coca-Cola to talk about how much sugar the drink contains, and how excess sugar intake is linked to tooth decay and obesity?

It just makes sense to emphasize the positives, and avoid or neutralize the negatives, in order to persuade someone to buy.

BUT… if you’re both an Internet marketer who sells stuff AND an entrepreneur who looks for tools and information to help build your business… it probably doesn’t hurt to occasionally repeat the dirty little secret of Internet marketing products!

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Allow bloggers to place a widget on their blogs containing the titles of related blog articles and this would lead to people visiting other blogs, which, in turn, would result in heaps of free traffic for bloggers all round.

And you know what? BlogRush - the brainchild of John Reese - captured the imagination of literally thousands of bloggers around the world. In the words of John Reese:

“When BlogRush launched in late-2007 it spread like wildfire all over the Web. Thousands of bloggers were talking about it and the service exploded to become one of the fastest growing free services in the history of the Web. During the first year of the service it successfully served 3.4 billion blog post headlines and the BlogRush widget could be found on blogs all over the world…”

Only it didn’t work.

Sure, plenty of bloggers used it. But it didn’t generate the huge volumes of traffic those who participated in the network had hoped for.

Bloggers tended to put their BlogRush widgets at the bottom of their blog pages. And of those blog readers who actually saw the widgets, very few actually visited the other blog articles appearing in the widget.

We could attempt to deconstruct the failure of BlogRush further. But a single article wouldn’t do justice to either BlogRush or the failure of BlogRush. And forgive me if I haven’t fully explained how BlogRush was supposed to work. It wasn’t just a blog referral widget – there was (among other things) some kind of credit system that I could never really get my head around!

According to John Reese, there were security issues and abusing users who tried to ‘game’ the system. There were also ‘quality control’ problems in terms of whose blog was - and wasn’t - allowed in the BlogRush network. Meanwhile, John Reese and his team never got around to monetizing the service and, despite offers, decided against selling it.

Together, these - and presumably a host of other - factors all conspired to cause John Reese to shut down the service last week.

But if you think the failure of BlogRush is a testimony to the wisdom of those who said it couldn’t be done… or to those who just love saying “I told you so”… think again.

While BlogRush may well have cost John Reese a small fortune, he should look back at the service with pride.

BlogRush is an example of thinking BIG. Of the entrepreneurial spirit at work. Of an idea that went beyond regurgitating what everyone else was doing in the Internet marketing space, to doing something DIFFERENT.

And ‘failure’ is, perhaps, unduly negative. BlogRush didn’t work. So what? Doesn’t mean John Reese didn’t learn a LOT about his target market or glean powerful insights about how something else might work in the future. While I don’t know John personally, I suspect he’ll be taking all the lessons learned from BlogRush to the bank.

I stress this because it’s important – indeed, CRITICAL - for YOU, as an entrepreneur, to be willing to fail or ‘find out what doesn’t work’. If you’re not out there failing, you’re not trying hard enough. Which means you’ll never achieve the success you seek.

There are players and spectators in business, just as there are players and spectators in sport (and life). Spectators sit comfortably on the sidelines and never get hurt or suffer defeat. Players endure hard training… get their fair share of injuries… and suffer many defeats.

But only PLAYERS get the chance to win, and to reap the rewards of victory. Rewards that may well be an Olympic medal… a multi-million dollar business… or a fulfilling personal life.

John Reese is a player. In terms of BlogRush, he may have lost the game. And if he’s a typical entrepreneur, BlogRush is unlikely to be the only game he’s lost or will lose in the future. But indications are that his wins more than make up for the occasional losses. And, chances are, BlogRush will be nothing more than a blip on an otherwise exceptional business record.

So be a player. Try your guts out and be willing to lose. Because that’s the only way you’ll ever win big. And trust me: I practice what I preach!

Source: IMNewswatch, “BlogRush Is Shutting Down”, IMNewswatch, October 30, 2008

MashLogic is a new Firefox plugin that allows you to specify what kind of links and other information you’d like to see on webpages.

You can specify, for example, links to Wikipedia, the names of your favorite players and teams on your favorite sports blog, as well as links to related headlines. The plugin also lets you stream audio and video from any wepage.

Currently available by invitation, you can specify your interest here: http://www.mashlogic.com

Source: Michael Arrington, “MashLogic: Take Back The Web (By Getting Awesome Links)”, TechCrunch, October 12, 2008

Buzz, Yahoo’s answer to Digg, is now open to anyone to contribute news stories. Previously, only invited publishers could contribute news to Buzz.

Like Digg, Buzz aims to rank news based on reader popularity i.e. reader “buzz”. Unlike Digg, Buzz reserves the editorial discretion to change headlines (in order to prevent or reduce gaming).

Still, if you contribute news to Digg, you might want to try Buzz as well.

Source: Michael Arrington, “Yahoo Buzz Opens Doors To Everyone”, TechCrunch, August 18, 2008, Buzz

Right now, Mike Filsaime is promoting his limited edition software product, Review Crusher. As at writing the product has not sold out, but that may change by the time you read this.

I guess the title of this article is somewhat ironic given that during his promotional video Mike condemns Google Adwords ads with headlines that appear to be critical of his name and the names of other high profile marketers. I hope you can see, though, that my headline is not in any way critical - it’s just based on a simply reality:

Mike Filsaime’s Review Crusher software won’t make you money. Only YOU will make you money.

Here’s why I raise this issue. Based on the popular business model of using product reviews to sell affiliate products - i.e. where the affiliate attracts prospects to their site by promoting reviews and then entices people to buy through their affiliate links - Mike has created software to automate the process of constructing such websites.

Mike’s contention - made in his promotional video - is that while the successful review sites he’s aware of manually build their websites, his software will make it easier for someone to build their own review site.

I say: so what?

Does his software bring qualified traffic to your site? Does the software make visitors buy from you?

Mike’s software is just… software. Sure, it may make it easier for you to create a product review site than if you used an HTML editor or blogging software like Wordpress.

But it’s not the construction of the site that is going to be your biggest challenge as you build a business based on product reviews. Your biggest challenge is going to be the same challenge faced by EVERY Internet marketer: getting lots of qualified traffic to your site and converting them into customers that, ideally, come back to buy from you again and again.

Personally, I think Review Crusher has a few bells and whistles that might make it worth getting. But if you decide to get it, please, whatever you do, customize the look and feel of your site. Do NOT use the same templates out of the box.

I can only imagine how many other people will get this software, use the same templates, and end up trying to sell the same products. That’s a recipe for getting crushed… not crushing others.

Put it this way, by definition, this product is aimed at people who don’t have the time, money or ability to create their own review sites… so you can bet that many of them also don’t have the time, money or ability to customize the look and functionality of their Review Crusher site!

On the other hand, if you do have the ability to customize the look and feel… before you take out your wallet for Review Crusher, you may want to consider customizing a Wordpress blog into a review site… After all, Wordpress is free!

Of course, you don’t get all the support Mike is offering if you use Wordpress, but the bottom line remains: Review Crusher won’t make you money.

Once you’ve installed, configured and customized the software, you need to get traffic and convert it into customers. An underlying that, you need a sound business and marketing strategy.

And just in case you’re wondering, this article is not a product review! It’s more like a “concept review”. I haven’t seen Review Crusher for myself and I am not an affiliate. I AM a fan of Mike Filsaime and think he is super-smart jumping on the review site bandwagon with this software product.

But the chief editorial aim of this Internet marketing newsletter is to empower you with news,\ comment, research, tools, tips and more to help your business become more profitable. And your business won’t become profitable if you get Review Crusher WITHOUT having a solid strategy for acquiring traffic and converting that traffic into customers.

Source: Review Crusher

Now this is cool. NYTimes.com plans to tailor headlines to LinkedIn members.

A deal between leading online news site, NYTimes.com and professional social network, LinkedIn, will see NYTimes.com automatically recognizing LinkedIn users when they visit the NYTimes.com business or technology pages, and displaying headlines relevant to those users’ industries.

Advertisers will also benefit, since the deal will enable NYTimes.com to tailor ads to LinkedIn members based on their professional profiles.

A LinkedIn member’s professional profile includes their industry, job function, seniority, company size, gender and geography.

No personally identifiable information will be given to advertisers, and NYTimes.com readers will be able to opt-out of the program.

The New York Times Company continues to impress me as an grand, old media company that is well and truly embracing new media opportunities and leaving other media players in the dust.

Source: Fred Aun, “NYTimes.com and LinkedIn Pair for Targeted Ads and Content”, The ClickZ Network, July 23, 2008

Interesting article by Kevin Gold in the Search Marketing Standard yesterday. He notes that whenever he stops actively managing his pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns… his conversions fall.

Kevin explains that whenever he lets his PPC ad campaigns run without actively adjusting bids, testing ad copy and optimizing landing page variables (e.g. headlines, opening body text, images, etc) his cost-per-click (CPC) and average bid position remain stable… but his conversions (based on whatever most desired action or “MDA” applies) tend to fall.

Kevin notes that after putting a lot of time and effort into achieving strong conversion rates of 8-10 percent in a given month… if he doesn’t keep on testing and tweaking in the following month, conversions will drop by 3-4 percent.

Although he’s not sure why this happens, he believes conversions may drop due to decreased brand awareness and increased competition. Lower offline brand awareness may detract from brand recognition and credibility that might otherwise be attributed to a listing. Increased competition may shift a PPC listing out of a strong bid position.

For small online businesses, a change in offline brand awareness may be irrelevant (there may be NO offline brand awareness to begin with!) but it seems plausible that a failure to actively manage one’s campaign could lead to a drop-off in conversions. Given that online shoppers tend to research products before they buy (83 percent of shoppers use online reviews when shopping according to Opinion Research Corporation), it’s likely that they will click on several competitors’ ads when looking for a given product or service.

So if your competitors are constantly testing and improving both their PPC campaigns and landing pages in order to attract the most qualified traffic and get them to buy, then THEY will keep on improving their conversions at YOUR expense.

Bottom line: passively running a PPC campaign is not an option, especially in highly competitive markets. Just as you must continue exercising in order to stay fit, you need to actively monitor and modify your PPC keywords, ads, bids, landing pages, etc in order for your marketing to stay competitive.

Source: Kevin Gold, “PPC Conversion Landslide - Exploring a Slippery Slope”, Search Marketing Standard, July 16, 2008

In a move to rein in bloggers inclined to interpret “copyright” as their right to copy, U.S. based news organization, The Associated Press, plans to introduce clear standards about how much of its content may be reproduced or excerpted in blogs without infringing its copyright.

The Associated Press - a not for profit group of 1,500 newspapers, including The New York Times - has not yet specified what these standards will be, but according to Saul Hansell, a journalist with The New York Times, the A.P. is specifically seeking to disallow reproduction of its headlines and first paragraphs. Presumably that doesn’t rule out including the headline of an article in a list of sources, as we have done below!

Despite some backlash from bloggers, the A.P.’s announcement comes as bloggers push the concept of “fair use” to the limit, with many bloggers routinely copying and pasting entire articles and blog posts onto their own sites, sometimes barely providing a reference to the original material.

Unfortunately, while it’s acceptable to write about copyrighted material… the law is not so clearcut when it comes to quoting extensive passages of a work… especially when these constitute an entire blog entry. Copying and pasting without attribution, on the other hand, is plagiarism and copyright infringement for which there is certainly no “fair use” excuse.

Sources: Saul Hansell, “The Associated Press to Set Guidelines for Using Its Articles in Blogs”, The New York Times, June 16, 2008, Saul Hansell, “The A.P. Asserts Tough (and Still Secret) View of Copyright on Blogs”, The New York Times, June 20, 2008