Imagine a magic machine.

And imagine that when you pour in all your marketing efforts into this machine, you’ll start seeing double, triple even quadruple your results without expending any more effort than you should.

Take all your online marketing activities…

• Blog posts…
• EzineArticles…
• Youtube…

Take all your content and plonk it into this mysterious contraption…

Suddenly…  You start seeing exponential results.

Where you were once making $997 per ad campaign. You’re now making $1997. Maybe even $4997…

We call it the Great Amplifier.

And no, this isn’t some overhyped guru product. Nor is it some newfangled SEO loophole. It isn’t even a software service or product.

This “magic machine” exists in the realm of the mind.

Yes, it’s almost like that hot movie out right now – Inception. It’s all about the power of a sticky idea…

What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient… highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed – fully understood – that sticks; right in there somewhere. ~ Cobb

Like the Christopher Nolan-helmed movie, the Great Amplifier takes your idea and wedging it deep into your prospect’s consciousness. And that idea could be a marketing message… A suggestion to buy your product… An idea to inspire them to change the world… Whatever the case… An idea deep rooted enough nearly always lead to action… And for your customers, that idea could be a buying one…

The end result? Profit for you.

Wait… It gets better… Imagine replicating that effect over and over and over again. A mass conversion from cold prospect to warm leads to red hot buyers. Automated forever. This is true niche domination, my friend… Once you can wrap your head around the forbidden truth that is going to be revealed by the Puppet Master tomorrow…

The seed that we plant in YOUR mind could change everything. ~ Cobb (paraphrased)

Prepare for it… You’re about to discover a breakthrough way of marketing that will fatten your coffers in a way like you never seen before. Watch out for an email tomorrow revealing the secret location of the never-before-seen video.

Get ready for an inception.

This concludes the end of the year. And as year-end traditions go, those irresistible “best-of” lists are everywhere.

For fun, I decided to do an internet marketing edition of one of those lists. I know it’s a little indulgent and more than a little incestuous due to the tiny size of our niche, but I bet you’re a sucker for this as much as I am.

So the Best in Internet Marketing 2009… Here’s an overview of the various categories:

• Top 10 Internet Marketers
• 3 Biggest Shockers
• Top 5 Products
• Top 5 Online Marketing Breakthroughs
• 5 Bold Predictions for 2010
• Puppet String Marketing Products of 2009

Without further ado…

1) Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher

I know I’m cheating by including 2 marketers instead of one. But these two are inseparable and boast of some of the best “good cop, bad cop” chemistry since the Lethal Weapon series. Awesome marketing insights and sharp-as-nails business acumen make them the marketing role models I wish I had years ago. These guys are the real deal.

2) Mike Hill

Mike Hill has been the secret weapon of many, many multi-million dollar corporations. He has pioneered a lot of the CPA offers we promote today, and has paved the way for Acai Berry, Teeth Whitening and Colon Cleansing to become the million-dollar niches they are today. He’s also a really big-hearted person and has even given me an unforgettable wedding gift.

3) Amish Shah

Some people call him the top CPA affiliate marketer in the world. I’m inclined to think so. His manic testing, grasp of human psychology and business smarts have put him way above the level of many other established marketers in his hyper-competitive domain. Recent props from Frank Kern will propel his already shining star even further.

4) Mike & Vishen from MindValley

The MindValley boys are going to be speaking at Yanik’s Underground 6 event  next year. And now… the doors will be flung open to those whom I feel to are among the world’s top underground online marketers. The only reason I know about this is because I used to be copy chief for these guys. These guys are all about marrying Silicon Valley-level technology, world-class email marketing and  topgrading to create 6 figure DAYS on a regular basis.

5) Marty Rozmanith

He’s on this list because he’s the man behind 2 of my top 2009 products WordPress Direct and CPA Ninjas. I rarely follow other marketers so closely. I even more rarely buy something a marketer’s put out. Most people produce derivative info or badly-coded software but whatever this guy handles is top notch. Learned a ton and WordPress Direct is my single best investment this year, and I make plenty.

6) Tim Schmidt

He’s not one of those guru types but he’s introduced a whole new way of doing continuity programs that’s going to revolutionize the way we do membership sites in the years to come. Called Association Marketing, his 80% stick rate and other staggering figures make mincemeat out of the far inferior forced continuity models introduced by Mike Filsaime and Russel Brunson of yore.

7) “The Barefoot Exec” Carrie Wilkerson

There’s an old internet marketing adage that says “all you need is one idea to put money in your pocket”, and you see this on countless IM sales letters. Well, the reason is that it IS true. Carrie gave me just one idea in the early days of the business to come out with my flagship product the Twitter Salvation System, and we have hundreds of buyers since. Plus, of course… She has an iron-clad grasp of personal branding and social media.

8.) Robert Plank and Jason Fladien

These guys are synonymous with the words “Speed of Implementation”. In the space of less than 12 months, I’ve seen them churn out no less than a whopping 22 products between them. With them, quantity doesn’t compromise quality though, and these guys are a boundless guide to smart resourceful strategies that you don’t need a lot of money to implement.

9) Andy Jenkins

In my opinion, the former Stompernet CEO has ascended to the pantheon of the email marketing Gods where deities like Frank Kern, Matt Furey and Dave Dee now reside. And that’s for starters; his SEO and e-commerce teachings have already become the stuff of legends. After all, making $25,000 off of a fake sword site really deserves recognition of some sort.

10) Peter Parks

Though not as well-known as Amish Shah, Aymen or the rest of the CPA Cartel, he has successfully cut a swath as a really smart superaffiliate to watch out for. His mastery of little-known licensing strategies and Web 2.0 marketing has brought some much needed innovation to the tired affiliate marketing space.

Perry Belcher retiring

I consider Perry a friend. I know his name has been synonymous with controversy over the past few years, but I still consider him one of the most brilliant marketers of his generation. The next Vincent James, I dare say. So imagine my shock when all his social media accounts got deleted and the revelation of his retirement from the IM scene was written on his blog. You’ll be sorely missed, Perry.

Google shutting down 100,000 accounts

Those in the scene know Google ain’t the biggest fans of us online marketers. But what they did next was just balls out insane. In the sweeping move that may change the face of the affiliate marketing landscape forever, they shut down a 100,000 AdWords accounts of online marketers — both spammer and legit. Overnight, entire income streams disappeared. “What next?” seems to be the question on everyone’s lips for 2010.

Andy Jenkins leaving StomperNet

There have been a lot of nasty rumors and wild speculation surrounding the circumstances, but let’s not go there. All I’m going to say is that he was the face behind one of online marketing’s biggest innovations in Stompernet… Thus, forever ends the era of those awesome StomperNet emails and pop culture references.

1) WordPress Direct

The one thing I missed about working for one of my previous companies was their content management system. They could set up an entire website structure in under 10 minutes. Now… technology has caught up because we can now do the exact same thing with WordPress Direct. Of course you need to upgrade to Platinum membership in order to enjoy an optimal CMS experience. But I believe every penny spent is worth it. You can get it here.

2) SENuke

People once paid underground marketers like Jeff Johnson $25,000 to learn SEO tactics that now SENuke can do on autopilot in a span of 15 minutes…At a fraction of the cost. The single most powerful linkbuilding and SEO tool on the market today, it can easily take the place of your local SEO company. Huge learning curve, but the search engine rankings are worth it. You can get it now.

3) CPA Tsunami

CPA marketing has been the rage this year. This says something: As much as CPA marketers make a ton of money, the product owners are making much much more as they tap into their army of insane super-affiliates. CPA Tsunami is brilliant underground marketer Mike Hill’s gift to the world… On how to set up your own CPA marketing program so that you don’t have to worry about traffic again. Thank you, Mike.

4) CPA Ninja

To continue the CPA marketing craze… There has been a slew of CPA affiliate marketing products released throughout the year with exorbitant price tags attached… Ranging from the painfully mediocre to the plain darn excellent. The best of the lot to me is CPA Ninja–Marty Rozmanith and Matt Trainer have excellent chemistry together, and Trainer’s Excel tricks have revolutionized the way I set up my AdWords campaigns forever.

5) 13 Sneaky Little Email Tricks

As a highly-paid email copywriter, I have seldom come across email marketing products that are any good. This $97 package by Ryan Deiss is a hidden gem among the slew of overpriced product launches. His ninja autoresponder tricks are really cool, and have directly impacted my income more than any other product out there. It’s still available, so get it while you still can.

1) CPA over Clickbank

Clickbank has long been the default starting place of the fledgeling affiliate marketer. In 2009 however, marketers have flocked over the CPA networks instead. Why? The simple reason that a simple Zip/Email submit converts far better than trying to squeeze a sale from jaded prospects. The maths is staggering. CPA is here to stay.

2) The Rise of the Cartel

As with any industry growing up, oligopolies and monopolies will form. Whereas the internet marketing scene was the Wild, Wild West a few years back, it’s now resembling more and more the dog-eat-dog offline world. The early adopters who are now the “top dogs” have banded together to form an invincible faction with mailing lists and money in the millions. Good business sense. Not so good for the lone rangers.

3) Bleep Bloop

For far too long the IM scene has had no checks and balances. Unscrupulous marketers have run roughshod over consumers with their forced continuity and upsell hell over the past decade or so. As a consumer, I have dealt with non-existent support, terrible coding and rehashed products so much that it has sadly become an industry norm. And in comes the Salty Droid, a blog detailing the various scams and scandals of the industry. He may be vulgar and a tad mean-spirited, but he’s a much-need breath of fresh air in a scene plagued with chicken-hearted sycophants. Read his rants here.

4) The FTC

And while the Salty Droid is the voice of the grassroots, the FTC is the governmental enforcer part of the equation. To be honest… I sometimes see the FTC as an inconvenience. No more high-converting testimonials with specific results… Disclosures everywhere, etc. Yet it’s one of those painful-but-good-for-you necessities because with no guidelines, there’s just going to be wanton abuse. So a grudging thanks FTC, for keeping us honest.

5) Social Media

Twitter and Facebook. Facebook and Twitter. 2009 is the year of social media. Every other day there seems to be a breaking news story on Twitter, Facebook and other social media services. Social media marketing is indeed revolutionizing the way we do business. Even for an obscure Malaysian marketer like myself, it has catapulted me into stratospheric heights that otherwise would not be possible.

1) Greater barriers to entry

5 years ago, the internet playing field was indeed a level one. Your average industrious work-at-home mom or the unemployed bum could succeed in online marketing, given enough determination and a Clickbank ebook. Unfortunately, times have changed. With newly-loaded online marketers employing an army of article writers, backlink builders and bloggers, the one man army does not really stand a chance anymore. You need sufficient cash and stringent tracking and testing in order to compete… Now, the online marketing scene is like any other industry–competitive and cut-throat, where only the strong survive.

2) Local Marketing

I was one of the first few who hopped on the local marketing wave long before Jeff Walker and Frank Kern exposed it to the world–and I’ve profited greatly from it. Most small biz owners don’t know the different between a squeeze page and SEO. So grab these low-hanging fruit by using your knowledge, experience and expertise to charge lucrative consultation fees and stop competing against the Mike Filsaime’s and Aymen’s of this world.

3) Going to the CPA networks

If you’re an existing product or business owner, there’s no better traffic tactic then turning to the CPA networks to lend you their army of SuperAffiliates. PPC… SEO… Article marketing… All these pale in comparison to the sheer awesomeness of “having a daily product launch” (as Mike Hill says). That’s how obscure niches like teeth whitening and acai berry are now multi-million dollar industries. Once you have an offer that converts, you don’t have to worry about buyers’ traffic ever again.

4) The shift from affiliate to product owner

By the same token, being an affiliate now is really not advisable. Did you know that if you’re using AdWords, there’s an option where you can make Google your affiliate? Offer them commissions, and they will auto-optimize your campaigns while spelunking profitable new keywords for you. The big problem? When Google perfects this formula, they’ll probably start cutting out the middlemen–i.e. affiliate marketers. All the more reason for you to launch a product-driven business and let other affiliates worry about Google’s next destructive move.

5) Building your business outside Google

Face it: Google is arrogant.  They’re probably have cause to be proud because the money-loaded corporations have jumped on board and they don’t really have to take care of the needs of the small business owner anymore. Plus, their shutting down of a 100,000 affiliate marketing AdWords accounts isn’t creating any more goodwill. Good news: Google only represents 15-20% of the web, so there still a big and lucrative playing field outside of them. CPV, CPA and contextual marketing… Explore them all.

Of course, what’s a Puppet Master post without a plug eh? Here’s some of the best-selling products we have released this year.

Twitter Salvation System

The grand-daddy of Twitter marketing. The Twitter Salvation System has been purchased by the gurus themselves, pleasantly surprising me in the process. Mark Joyner calls me a “Twitter genius”, click on the link to find out why.

Twitter Mind Control

What happens when you combine forbidden persuasion with Twitter’s real-time power? Twitter Mind Control, that’s what. Use these sneaky psychological triggers to boost sales, attract prospects or carve out your niche. Your call.

Twitter Affiliate Marketing

There’s a lot of BS out there on using Twitter for affiliate marketing. Follow-spamming your prospects while spamming them with endless Clickbank offers is far from best practice. Here’s my tested and proven method to shovelling in big fat affiliate commissions to your bank account–no black hat or illegal tricks.

Advanced Affiliate Marketing

If you want to take your affiliate marketing to the next level, you should take a look at this. Judging from the number of the most prominent affiliate marketers who bought this course, the Puppet Master’s take on Bum Marketing will turbo-charge your SEO and article marketing like no other.

Email Salvation System

This email marketing home study system is one year in the making. One of my buyers told me that they can see themselves making money utilizing even a fraction of the content. Most email courses are either crap or expensive, this may be the best bang for your buck if you want to enjoy profitable autoresponder marketing for the new year.

Well, what do you folks think? Agree? Disagree? What are your thoughts for the Best of 2009? Please leave your comments below!

Obama has served 100 days in the White House.

A 100 days. "Success or failure?", the 2 camps are still debating.

A policy here. A ruling there. Intervention all around. Some people call the President’s moves brilliant. Others call it plain dumb.

Yes, the voices are crystal clear. The first 100 days are always forgivable ones. You need to get your feet wet, to clean up the mess of the previous administration, just to learn to juggle the various egos of the others in power.

The first 100 days are about research, and policy discussions, and rounds and rounds of meetings to fix what’s wrong about the country.

Yet, the same media voices claim the next 100 days are THE MOST CRUCIAL ONES to determine whether Obama succeeds as president  or is a flash in the pan.

You see, the next 100 days are about IMPLEMENTATION. To stop talking and take action. And the anticipated results will determine his destiny.

How have you spent the last 100 days?

Did you set your goals? New Years Resolution? A fierce determination to succeed and prevail through this difficult recession period?

Now, whether you see results or not, it’s crunch time.

Just like Obama, it’s your next 100 days that determine whether you sink or swim in this moment of crisis. Whether you make a comfortable living or become yet-another-statistic.

It depends on you.

And right now you want to take the street fighter route and use any weapon to not just survive, but thrive.

This is when Twitter comes in. A marketing channel that doesn’t cost money, yet has unprecedented opportunity. Oprah, Ashton, CNN… Twitter’s now mainstream baby, and it’s time to learn how to harness Twitter for maximum ROI.

Internet wealth specialist Stephen Pierce says that its far easier to dominate a marketing channel that it is a niche. In other words, you reap more profits from focusing on one channel than trying to challenge the existing Goliath’s in their niche.

They’re probably going to clobber you.

You still have first-mover advantage on Twitter. In fact, I guarantee you that if you focus on Twitter marketing for the next 100 days, your business will accelerate in a way you never thought possible.

Picture this… Once you master Twitter… Your prospects suddenly transforming into evangelists… A steady flow of leads without spending a red cent… Your personal brand spreading like wildfire across the Internet.

It is possible. In fact, in less than 100 days after coming on Twitter as an unknown, I established a 5 figure business from scratch–with no name, no list and no website. And a 100 days later, I’m among the elite marketers in this world.

I’m handing you the keys to the kingdom. This is the age of acceleration. The whole old-fashioned, white-knucked slave-till-dawn was the old rule of successes. Now, it’s to springboard off the opportunities and devices that make leapfrogging your predecessors so much easier.

So come on! Your next 100 days is do or die. Seize the moment and take that step of faith to succeed today.

—–> Carpe Diem!

P.S. 100 days may seem short. But miracles can happen in that time. A 100 days ago I was still unmarried. A 100 days before that I was still an unknown copywriter trying to make a living. Take the 100 days challenge and rise up now.

Twitter Salvation System. Doors Now Open.

Stop the presses!

On Friday, Oprah sent out her first tweet, and in the space of 3 days, she had over 300,000 followers.

Twitter is now officially uncool. (Actually, I’m kidding there. :p)

But on a serious note, I personally believe that when Oprah Winfrey got on Twitter on Friday, that represents one of the most significant things to ever happen to your business and to your marketing if you are using Twitter as a marketing, branding and business channel.

I’d like to discuss with you 4 urgent reasons why Oprah matters to your marketing, and why you should take note and take action as quick as you can.

1. Twitter has just had the Oprah Effect

As you know, Oprah is one of the most influential people on earth. Love her or hate her, her endorsements have turned otherwise obscure books into New York Times best-sellers; she is the reason why The Secret is the world-wide phenomenon it is today as opposed to a niche viral video.

And now, Oprah endorses Twitter above Facebook and Myspace and all the other social media of before.

It doesn’t take a detective to know that whatever Oprah endorses becomes successful.

We can already see the spike she’s caused; over 1.5 million more users were added on Twitter because of her arrival.

Shaq, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore have used Twitter and brought it into the mainstream market, but Oprah has just stepped in to open the door to a much wider demographic.

And here’s why it matters to you.

1. Now you have a fresh audience on Twitter. Twitter’s grown immensely over the last year (1000%) and it’s probably going to grow another 1000% in the next few months because of the Oprah endorsement.

Hence the tipping point.

2. The second point is the acceleration of a trend that’s already growing on Twitter, namely that the older demographics are the first to get on board the Twitter wagon.

The 25-35 year-olds and the 45-60 year olds are by far the biggest users of Twitter right now, as opposed to teenagers or kids.

The Oprah audience is largely of this demographic as well.

This demographic has money, is eager to do business, and have the disposable income that marketers and businesses covet.

It’s not a fact ignored by many corporations either, because tons of brands are getting on Twitter.

Although Twitter has one seventh or one-eighth of the audience of Facebook, there are more businesses on Twitter than there are on Facebook already.

In short,

(i) You have a new dimension of audience on Twitter

(ii) And for the first time in history, this early-adopter/cusp of mainstream audience is a group of people with money; people with a financial security and disposable income.

That’s really good for business when you have a marketing channel filled with people who have the money to spare.

2. The Pareto Principle is now in Full Force

You see, Oprah’s audiences have been dwindling due to some mistimed moves.

Her audience has been dropping but she’s still the most influential person on television (as far as I know). But what is happening is a very clever strategy especially in the recession period: the Pareto principle, which is, as you probably know, 20% of your customers contribute 80% of your sales.

This means that if you have an existing brand like Oprah or you’re a small business owner and you’re actually getting people to follow you or to subscribe to your Twitter channel without much promotion or pushing, or just by promoting it to your customers, they probably fall into the 20% of your customers because they’re willing to sign up to what they know if a marketing channel and they’re interested in what you have to say.

Twitter succeeds in being a filter of sorts between the 80% of your audience who don’t care so much about what you have to say vs. the 20% of your audience who really care and actually sign up to be hit from multiple marketing channels with more marketing angles by you.

This is really good because as you know, 2 out of the 3 ways to make money are (i) to sell to an existing audience and (ii) to increase the size of purchase for every transaction. Twitter does that really well; it creates a pre-sold audience that’s already interested in you and can create a 20% that’s already interested in you just like The Cult Of Mac.

And Oprah knows that — she knows who her 20% are, as opposed to the 80% nominal viewers; she knows who the consumers are who’ll buy from her over and over and over again.

As you know, the backend sales will normally surpass the front-end ones, and it’s this 20% of your buying population who’ll do that.

Twitter easily and effectively separates the nominal 80% from the 20% of raving followers.

And the beauty of Twitter is that through certain strategies, even that 80% who may be lukewarm to you on Twitter can be converted into your 20% raving followers ratio.

3. You — Like Oprah – Will Now Know What People Want

Oprah now has what is probably the most effective channel of knowing what people are thinking of or about at the moment. Remember that I’ve said before that Google is good for what people are searching for at the moment, while Twitter is good for what people are thinking of at the moment.

No market research is as immediate and as precise as what’s happening on Twitter at the moment.

Oprah now has all that information; she would know what her 300,000 fans have to say; she’d know their thoughts by simply using the ultimate, free research tool: Twitter.

If the celebrities are going in, in full force, to get this direct connection with their fans on Twitter, it’s best for you to go in and to know your customers in a more intimate way too because on Twitter you’ll probably have people tweeting you their hopes, dreams, fears — uncensored and in a very safe and personal setting.

As you may know when it comes to marketing research and focus groups, a lot of focus groups don’t really work simply because people in that kind of setting will give an answer they think you want to hear as opposed to what they really think.

On Twitter, it’s uncensored and spontaneous; you get a true feel for your market’s demographic and you can craft marketing angles one after the other to create really excellent response results.

4. You still have room to dominate this marketing channel

Stephen Pierce, the great internet wealth expert and motivation speaker said something really interesting recently. He said that it’s easier now to dominate channels that it is to dominate markets.

What does that mean? It means that it’s easier now to dominate a certain channel of marketing for a particular niche as opposed to dominating the niche itself (unless of course the niche is really small and is at its beginning stages).

We’ve reached a point where nearly any and every niche is crowded.

You go into the marketing niche and there’s a thousand pretenders; you go into the financial niche and there’s a thousand other people competing for your share.

What you can do is be an authority in a specific marketing niche. And because of the newness of Twitter and because of the pioneering aspect of Twitter you can go on Twitter now and be the expert in your field for that particular channel.

Because of Twitter’s mainstream acceptance, when you position yourself as a Twitter expert, you have a large inbuilt list of buyers and prospects that you can reach out to that will see you as an authority, as the channel expert in your field on Twitter.

There are many ways to dominate this channel, and many ways in which you can position yourself as an authority.

For me, the world of copywriting is somewhat saturated, but on Twitter I am my own man; I am ‘the king’ of copywriting and email marketing with close to ten times the followers of most copywriters on Twitter which gives me credibility in this niche on Twitter.

Twitter has given me the authority and the edge I otherwise wouldn’t have if I’d followed the traditional route.

That is why I urge you to sign up today so that you can dominate Twitter so that no one else can. This is first-mover knowledge, it’s first-mover intelligence whereby I teach you how to dominate Twitter, to be a Twitter expert and to claim your market share as much as possible.

It’s so easy to get really big on Twitter simply because it’s easy to get new followers fast.

Just tap into my secrets to find out how you can be wildly successful on Twitter.

The mantra of both my course, the Twitter Salvation System and my marketing is this, “psychology, not technology.” You may have the latest nifty Twitter tools that can enable you to spread your message spread far and wide, but if you can’t grasp the Twitter user’s mindset, you’ll never be able to sell a dime.

Instead of using tired “Buy or Die” tactics, I give you sound advice and demonstrate the full potential that my little labor of love can do for your business.

I used these principles to launch a 5 figure biz from scratch nearly exclusively using Twitter—and that was even before I discovered any of the Twitter tools. Purely by using the web interface we’d made $10k in 3 weeks—with no list, no name and very little money.

And now by replicating these same techniques over and over again, I have got a sizable income rise, speaking engagements and more JV projects that I have to turn down.

Here’s a sneak peek of the 3 BRAND NEW MODULES that I included with the package:

• How to get 1000 followers in a day, and transform them into evangelist—with just 1 Tweet? Yes, it’s possible. A sprinkle of persuasion magic is all it takes!
• How to unleash the power of social influence marketing. Often, it’s not the what but the who that matters in marketing. If you’re respected, everything you say holds more weight. A simple way to accomplish mavenhood in as little as a month.
• A step-by-step Twitter for newbie’s module. Look, I know some of you came in from the nudging of Ashton  and Oprah. It’s nothing to be ashamed about. Here’s a quick and easy blueprint to get you up to speed. You’ll be tapping into Twitter as a lucrative marketing channel in no time.

Here’s the thing. There are strictly limited copies available.  We’re limiting it to 500 copies because me and my wife Laura do all the customer support ourselves –we believe in personalized support for each and every client we handle.

There’s been quite a bit of buzz about the Salvation System so I want to make sure you get first dibs on one of the hottest Twitter products around.

Your Twitter Salvation Is Here