“How To Become A More Effective Marketer In Just Four Steps”

You’re always in the business of marketing no matter what business you are in.

Fact is this has become so intimate that personal success is often linked to how well we are able to market ourselves to others. Similarly on the Internet, it’s often how you market that matters most.

A good product can fail without the right marketing and a bad product can soar with aggressive marketing! For small businesses and individual entrepreneurs, learning to employ effective marketing strategies has become extremely vital for success.

You need to become very good at marketing.

When I first started out, this principle was so firmly fixed in my mind I ended up spending thousands in materials monthly. These were well-spent investments for sure, but for most new marketers looking to make money online, such investments may not be a luxury.

There are other ‘guerrilla-like’ ways to acquire knowledge and marketing experiences without the regular outflow of money. Anyone can apply the following four steps to gain better marketing skills and knowledge…and become a more effective marketer at no cost:

Step One: Learning from other marketers

One of the easiest ways to learn and improve your marketing is by learning from colleagues and competitors in your market. If something’s working, use it as a model as you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

Subscribe to newsletters, courses and ezines from established marketing experts and watch how they market. Read marketing books and guides in your library. You can surely pick up many good tips with this free method.

To search for marketing-related newsletters for example, visit ezine directories like
http://www.ezinesearch.com, http://www.bestezines.com etc.

An essential exercise is to study promotional e-mails and sales letters that catch your attention. It’s a powerful way to collect a series of swipe files for your own marketing campaigns.

Step Two: Reading articles

The ultimate no cost education you can find online is really from articles such as this. Do not under-estimate the learning potential from articles just because they are free. Most articles contain usable and valuable information gathered from the writers’ experiences. You can quickly reduce your learning curve from this one resource.

You can find articles from on many topics at article directories; here are some for your use:

http://www.ideamarketers.com
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.marketing-seek.com

Step Three: Staying Informed

Information is power so stay informed of important events and discoveries. This empowers your marketing. Do constant research using the search engines, marketing forums, discussion groups, and news site to be updated on marketing-related news.

For example one of my favourite sites is DM News focusing on direct marketing: http://www.dmnews.com

Here’s a simple method to be kept updated on changes and news regularly on autopilot. Use the free resource provided by Google called “Google News Alerts”...

You can get it here by following the instructions to create an account:

http://www.google.com/newsalerts?hl=en

Step Four: Keeping It Going

Remember, you’ve to APPLY what you learn to improve. The fastest way to learn anything is by applying the information and doing it. This is why some say information is only power when it’s applied. Something as simple as reading, writing an article or collecting swipe files can be extremely beneficial in the long-term. Practice makes perfect and action creates momentum.

Don’t worry about making mistakes. We all will one time or another, just learn from them and move on. Experience is a very valuable teacher, don’t waste it!

About the author:

Discover Ewen Chia’s Secret Affiliate Weapon
To Force Avalanches Of Instant Cash Into Your
Bank Account Fast…Even If You Don't Have
A List, Website Or Product! Click Here Now:
>>> http://www.SecretAffiliateWeapon.com

“How To Crank Out Million Dollar Product Ideas From Scratch”

(C) Copyright Ewen Chia, http://www.EzineArticle.com

Are you currently stuck trying to think up ideas for that million dollar product?

I’ve got a surefire formula to get you unstuck and on the road to generating more profitable product ideas than you can handle.

First, let’s talk about the real reason people hit a blank wall when they start brainstorming. The sad fact is that our brains are a bit lazy. The human mind hates sustained concentration and always seeks the shortest, quickest and easiest path to solving any problem.

When you sit down with pen and paper in hand and ask yourself, “What product do I want to create?”, you’ve just given your brain an overwhelmingly open-ended question…

The problem is that the term ’product” is far too abstract. It includes literally thousands of possibilities. Your mind gets overwhelmed and doesn’t know where to begin. Think of your mind as a young child on a playground. You want to give him a clear set of boundaries. He can play freely and safely as long as he knows your parameters – but set him loose with the command to “do anything”, and he’s likely to run out of your control.

Fortunately, there’s a formula you can use to take control of the brainstorming process… This formula gives your mind something it absolutely loves: order and categorization.

When you use this formula, ideas will come to you automatically. The reason is that you are giving your mind a logical map to branch out from, rather than asking it to start in the middle of nowhere.

Are you ready to learn the formula for churning out million dollar product ideas at will? Here it is:

==> Consumer Class + Product Purpose = Winning Idea!

Each of the above variable represents a set of questions you must answer. Your answers do not lock you into anything. Instead, they create a series of sub categories to guide you in your brainstorming sessions. These sub categories enable you to open up new tightly defined niches the farther you go.

(1) Let’s start with the “Consumer Class” variable...

Who is your consumer? Is he/she:

- An individual?
- A small business?
- A large business?
- An end user at home or at work?
- A single product consumer?
- A bulk product consumer?

Also ask the question of what your consumer is interested in, and which market niche he/she belongs to.

(2) Now, let’s look at the “Product Purpose” variable...

What is the purpose of this product? Is it:

- Pure information and education?
- Aimed at solving a problem quickly and efficiently?
- Designed for entertainment?
- Factual or fictional?
- Text only or will it include software, audio or video?
- Complete as is or will it require updates?
- Suitable for download or better off rolled into a membership site?

You can even add additional variables to plug into the formula if you want.

Notice how each variable opens up further room for categorization? Let’s say that you chose “a single product consumer” for your consumer class variable, and “fiction” for your product purpose variable. What you really have is a fictional entertainment product. At this point, you have a new map to branch off from.

What comes to mind when you think of a single product consumer? E-books come to mind. Maybe the product should be a work of fiction in e-book format? This sounds good, so now all you have to do is figure out what types of fiction people are actually searching for online…

The next step is to go to overture.com and type in some keywords. In this case, I tried out “e-book”, “fiction” and “stories”. It appears that Harry Potter e-books are popular, but you risk copyright infringement on that topic. The number one niche for “fiction” happens to be “fan fiction”. Fan fiction usually involves new story lines (often of an explicit sexual nature) between popular science fiction characters. We’ll pass on that one as well.

However, the keyword “stories” pulls up something interesting: ghost stories! Here’s an area where you could collect a lot of content from the public domain (For tips and secrets on using public domain for profit, you can find excellent information in “Public Domain Riches” at http://tinyurl.com/5xkwn).

You could also hire a professional fiction writer from Elance.com and have him or her put together some ghost stories or old wives’ tales for you…and voila! Instant niche product.

You can come up with other fun ideas within this one niche by continuing to play with the variables. For example, if you repackage the product purpose in the audio-visual category, you might come up with other ideas like:

- A CD or downloadable set of mp3’s containing “spooky sounds”
- A set of graphics or screensavers for Halloween
- Some novelty software like a virtual ouija board or ghost-hunting game

Now, wasn’t that easy? Four new ideas generated almost instantly and you didn’t even have to break a sweat...just fill in the blanks of this formula and the product ideas pop out like magic!

A powerful way to reap huge profits here is to act on the right ideas fast. Turn million dollar ideas into million dollar products.

If you're stuck with the actual process of product creation, look to proven blueprints like "Create Your Own Products In A Flash" (http://www.l1nk.com/urr/productsinaflash.html) or "How To Create Best Sellers Online" (http://www.l1nk.com/urr/bestselling.html).

These will help you churn out profitable products easily in no time!

About the author:

Discover Ewen Chia’s Secret Affiliate Weapon
To Force Avalanches Of Instant Cash Into Your
Bank Account Fast…Even If You Don't Have
A List, Website Or Product! Click Here Now:
>>> http://www.SecretAffiliateWeapon.com

"Top 5 Secrets To Loading Your Web Site With Traffic Boosting Content!"

(C) Copyright Ewen Chia, http://www.EzineArticle.com

Successful webmasters and marketers agree: words rule the web!

Nothing beats fresh, keyword rich content for attracting search engine spiders, live visitors and repeat visitors. But there’s just ONE obstacle for the newbie web publisher though…

It takes a lot of work to write all the content on your own.

Well, the good news is that you don’t have to create all of this content yourself.

In fact, you can load up your web site with top notch articles, news, cartoons and a whole lot more when you simply outsource your content.

If you’ve ever wondered how the experts load up their web sites so quickly, then today is your lucky day…I’m about to show you their top 5 secret resources…

Act on this information now and you’ll have quality content published before dinner time, guaranteed!

==> Secret Resource #1: RSS Feeds

RSS Feeds are the hot commodity on the web right now. RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and describes a technology that allows web sites to syndicate, or distribute, their content among other sites.

Maybe you’re already familiar with news syndication sources like Reuters and the Associated Press? RSS parallels this concept and brings it online.

Content syndication provides an ideal solution for the cost and time conscious internet marketer. You can load your site with relevant business and marketing articles and reap significant rewards.

Syndicated articles attract the search engines to your site in two important ways. The first and most obvious fact is that more content and more keywords = better rankings, period. Second, you boost the value of your incoming and outgoing links – a very important element in the eyes of Google’s page rank algorithm.

If you’re totally new to RSS, then visit the following two sites to brush up on your knowledge. They will educate you a bit more on how RSS works and what you need to do to implement it on your site:

MNot RSS Tutorial: http://www.mnot.net/rss/tutorial/
Site Pro News: http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2004/feb/9.html

Here’s a starter list of marketing related feeds available for instant syndication:

Shelley Lowery’s Web Source.Net:
http://www.web-source.net/syndicator.htm
Wilson Web Syndicated Content:
http://www.wilsonweb.com/syndicate/
Search Engine Watch News Feed:
http://searchenginewatch.com/sew.xml

There are plenty of other resources out there. Spend some quality time surfing your favorite marketing sites and see if they have syndication available.

If you want to exploit RSS quickly and easily and get the most benefits out of the technology without taking forever, then you’d find these extremely useful:

RSS Equalizer: http://www.l1nk.com/urr/rrse.html
Express RSS: http://www.l1nk.com/urr/expressrss.html

==> Secret Resource #2: Static Article Syndication Sites

One of the tried and true methods for building a name online is to write and publish your own articles. Thousands of writers submit articles each day to article syndication sites.

The trade off is simple: web site and e-zine publishers are granted permission to re-print these articles as long as they remain unchanged from the original and the writer’s by-line is kept intact. The publisher wins by getting free content, and the writer wins whenever someone new
sees their by-line and clicks on their URL.

Here are some of the top sources for finding free, re-printable articles:

First in Articles: http://www.1st-in-articles.com/
Marketing Words: http://www.marketingwords.com/articles.html
Idea Marketers: http://www.ideamarketers.com/
Market Position Newsletter: http://www.bizweb2000.com/articles.htm

Those should get you off to a good start. If you need more resources, just do a search on “reprint articles” in your favorite search engine or download a copy of the Alexa toolbar and scout out the related links that pop up for each site you visit.

And if you desire to create your own articles for traffic and profit, check this amazingly good resource out: http://www.l1nk.com/urr/twt.html

==> Secret Resource #3: Paying for Premium Content

You know the saying, “You get what you pay for”. By far, the most comprehensive database of premium marketing and business content comes from this one source:

Marketing Sherpa: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/

Content is divided into two specialty libraries: the Case Studies Library and the Practical Marketing Knowledge Library. The Case Studies Library profiles both large and mid-sized businesses and dives into marketing experiments on such topics as email marketing, business-to-business marketing, branding, subscriber base conversion and a whole lot more.

The Practical Marketing Knowledge library features over 250 articles and interviews with experts sharing step-by-step marketing plans.

If you would like to license Marketing Sherpa content for re-distribution, you’ll need to contact OSKAR Consulting courtesy of Elizabeth Karolczak. She can be reached via email at info@oasker.com, or via telephone at 1.650.625.1780. If she’s unavailable, simply ask to speak with an Electronic Licensing Representative.

==> Secret Resource #4: Hire a Ghost Writer

When you hire a ghostwriter, or freelancer, you can have custom content created for your site. Your writer will pump out articles on any topic you specify and you get to put your name on the finished product!

The best way to hire a writer is to bid for his or her services. This allows you to negotiate the best deal for your budget if expense is an issue.

Here’s where to find and hire ghostwriters:

http://www.elance.com
http://www.guru.com/category.cfm?tc=23134&kw=web%20content&cid=500
http://www.freeagent.com
http://www.freelancewriting.com

To discover the real secrets to getting tons of ghostwriters begging you to take their content, go to: http://www.l1nk.com/urr/ghostniche.html

==> Secret Resource #5: Your Own Web Visitors and Ezine Subscribers

What better way to generate content and develop a sense of community among your visitors than having them contribute to your site or ezine?

One shining example of this tactic in action comes from my friend, Willie Crawford, owner of www.chitterlings.com. The site focuses on southern cooking recipes, but this tactic should work for internet marketing based sites as well.

Each week, Willie’s ezine subscribers submit dozens of recipes. He takes the best of the best and highlights them in each issue of the newsletter. You could do the same by soliciting your subscribers for articles, tips, product recommendations or even case studies on their own marketing efforts.

You simply edit the content for style, grammar and length, then toss a few of your own comments to add some flow to the presentation. This takes a minimal amount of effort and you produce a great publication that people want to read because they get to see themselves in print.

These 5 secret sources represent just the tip of the iceberg.

Content is plentiful if you know where to look. The best part is that it takes about half the time and effort to track down quality sources as it does to produce the content all on your own, meaning….

…Be a smart marketer and outsource.