Watch this video to find out why the barriers of entry are infinitely HARSHER in your pursuit of the online marketing dream. If you’re still living in the “all I need is sweat labor to get rewarded” bubble, then you owe it to yourself to watch this video now:

Here’s a brief summary…

There are 4 different barriers to entry:

1. Teams - You need groups of people to grow your business exponentially.
2. Connections – Without JVs, you can’t enjoy the accelerated returns the gurus can give you.
3. Age - Domain age is one of the biggest keys towards getting an authority site.
4. Systems – Internet marketing requires complexity to generate a profit. Here’s how.

All these things need capital. So here are the 4 ways to raise capital:

1. Get a business loan.
2. Get an angel.
3. Do a product launch
4. Build the business organically.

What do you think? How have you found the suite of videos so far? Please leave a comment below.

Internet marketing used to be a whole lot easier than it is now.

The early adopters really had it good. College students, work-at-home moms, and a whole myriad of hobbyists read a few e-books online, applied what they learned and struck gold. So many people actually legitimately made a living from bum marketing and EzineArticles alone.

For the marginally more ambitious, they pursued the product launches and took their earnings to an entirely new level.

Alas, the good ol’ days are gone.

In this video, you’ll learn 3 reasons why you need to go beyond the “island mentality” in order to succeed in the world of online marketing.

Please watch the video to find out what they are…

Watch this startling video:

For the shocking HMK twist, check your inbox in the next few days to discover your secret link to the tell-all video where ALL will be revealed. If you’re not part of the mailing list, then sign up below…

Watch this to find out the big bad secret:

If you can’t load the video or can’t watch it for some reason, here’s the deal:

Tomorrow on Thursday (04/15/2010), FOR 24 HOURS ONLY… I’ll be offering my 3 flagship Twitter products for around 50% off.

The reason why is because we’re moving all the products to Clickbank… And we’ll be raising all the product prices to accommodate the increased rates. So here’s your LAST CHANCE to get the 3 Twitter marketing products for one insanely low price.

Watch out for the email titled Triple Twitter Thursday tomorrow. Sale runs till Thursday midnight. Check your inbox for your secret link tomorrow.

In case you’re not on the list, please sign up to the mailing list here for your early notification.

I must admit… Dan Areily, author of Predictably Irrational really is the man. Kicking myself for jumping on the bandwagon late. These internet marketers are making mega moolah from his teachings big-time. Check it out and comment on the video below and let me know your thoughts.

Cheers.

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!

The Grammy’s are upon us once again.

Of all the nominees in the running, the one that has caught my attention the most is Lady Gaga.

In case you haven’t heard of the eccentric entertainer, you probably been living under a rock. In fact, in the news recently there was outrage over the fact Lady Gaga couldn’t be nominated in the Best New Artist category due to a technicality.

Having said that however, she had a decent haul of 5 nominations, including Record and Album of the Year. Yet what’s even more remarkable is how rapidly  she rose to fame in such a quick time. Within the space of a year she has been hailed as the next Madonna and is on track to becoming one of the fastest rising stars of all time.

This reminds me a lot about affiliate marketing on Twitter, strangely enough. For one thing, I believe Lady Gaga is one sharp marketing genius. But here’s the other 3 quick explanations of the similarity between Lady Gaga and Twitter affiliate marketing:

1) Your Tweets Must Look Like Lady Gaga’s Outrageous Costumes

Love her or hate her, you definitely can’t forget those crazy fashion statements courtesy of the Haus of Gaga. And that’s in a existing crowd of extreme fashionistas.  In the same manner, your tweets need to stand out in the sea of noise. Promo and advertising tweets are just going to be plain ignored in a realm where every spammer has taken advantage of Twitter’s ease of registration and has tweeted the heck out of your already overwhelmed prospects.

2) Your Links must Sound Like Lady Gaga’s Catchy Songs

To me, Poker Face is one of the catchiest songs of the year. And that single epitomizes the rest of Lady Gaga’s catalog. Great dance songs that add color to people’s drab lives. Your links must do the same thing. It must add value and flavor to your follower’s life. People are not going to stick around to click on your promotions unless your Dell, Zappos or something like that. Give them a reason to stay by consistently tweeting cool inks.

3) Your Promotions Must Feel Like Lady Gaga’s Live Performances

Have you ever seen Lady Gaga’s performance? Her spectacular theatrics are more performance art than anything resembling a conventional concert. In the same manner, you got to adopt the same attitude when it comes to your promotions. Your affiliate marketing efforts cannot be the same as anyone else, or else it gets treated with indifference. How come 2 affiliate marketers can tweet the same promotion and one makes 10 times more? The difference lies in the secret sauce revealed below…

In the Puppet Master’s brand new creation True Twitter Riches… You’ll learn these 3 “Lady Gaga secrets” that will turbo-charge your affiliate marketing efforts on Twitter.

Inside… You discover:

• How to write tweets that grab eyeballs just like a Lady Gaga bodysuit…
• My 2 secret sources for getting an endless supply of cool inks to provoke red-hot (and lucrative) relationships with my followers…
• The quickest, easiest way to craft promotions that stand out like one of Lady Gaga’s trademark live shows…

Sound good? Go here to check True Twitter Riches out when its still on the market:

Click Here Check Out True Twitter Riches Now

ADMIT IT: Who here is actually successfully using Twitter for affiliate marketing? Who here is actually making a killing with every tweet they put out?

If you’re one of those who sheepishly put up their hands, don’t worry, because you’re not alone.

Frankly… Judging from the kind of terrible affiliate marketing examples plaguing the Tweetasphere, I don’t blame you.

It’s almost like Twitter’s ease-of-use and real-time function is both its biggest blessing and curse. Sending one tweet takes only 20 seconds or less. And making even tens of dollars from such minimal effort seems rather alluring. Yet the end result is a lot of noise and very little conversion. As a result, you get travesties like:

• Endless bots with sexy fake photos sending endless tweets to random unconnected Clickbank offers…
• Or those annoying @username messages where you get a supposedly personalized message from strangers that end up with yet another CPA offer…
• Or one of those Twitter affiliate marketing home study courses that advocate connecting RSS feeds to their Twitter account as the the ultimate way to getting a big fat commission.

It really shows the level of cluelessness in the social media scene, doesn’t it?

I don’t mean to bash my fellow marketers perching on my high horse. Nosiree. After all, I myself was guilty of those sins once upon a time.

And yes, I didn’t exactly get rich using those despised tactics either.

I have since reformed. And I have now tested and tracked my wait to rapid Twitter profitability.

I must confess… I’m not making millions of dollars from using Twitter for affiliate marketing. There are FAR SUPERIOR ways to increasing your bottom line.

Yet done right… You can make a nice supplementary autopilot income on Twitter… Provided you know what to do…

I’ve been working on something that helps the average marketer become a Twitter Superaffiliate. After humiliating trail and error and intense testing and tracking, I have discovered a template for affiliate marketing on Twitter that’s both effective and profitable.

Remember, you could be one tweet away from fattening up your holiday earnings that you can use whatever way you please.

Click here to find out more now!

That subject lines sounds a little crazy doesn’t it?

But this is precisely what yesterday’s email was promising today. Go here to find out more:

http://salvationsystem.com/jayabraham

So imagine if it were true…

You’re sitting at your desk, worrying about where your next dollar is coming from, when someone taps you on the shoulder…

It’s Jay Abraham. Standing in your office with a big smile on their face.

“I’d like to help you turn your business around,” they say. “And I brought a few of my friends to assist me.”

You glance out in the hall and see 54 of the world’s foremost marketing and business building experts lined up out the door.

The faces are instantly recognizable. Tony Robbins…Jay Conrad Levinson…Brian Tracy…Michael Gerber…Stephen Covey…the list goes on and on.

They’re all here, just waiting to hand you their wisdom and insights to creating ultimate wealth and business success.

And the best part? It’s all FREE.

Now you start pinching yourself, because you know you’re dreaming.

There’s simply NO WAY all these world-renowned business experts are handing out their most closely guarded secrets–for nothing.

Is there?

http://salvationsystem.com/jayabraham

With the League of Extraordinary Minds, this dream can come closer to reality than you ever thought possible…

You see, Jay Abraham and his partner Rich Schefren have spent the last year scouring the entire business world, examining the highest echelons of reputations, skill and recognition to find only the best of the best in their respective fields.

They evaluated more than 1500 top experts choosing just 54 who (both felt) possessed the critical expert understanding and decisive, specialized business skill sets to show YOU where the big profits are hidden in your business – - and how to get them.

And now, they’re all together inside the League, broken out into highly specific panels for 6 solid weeks to better answer your questions regarding your biggest business challenges.

We’re talking 52 legendary experts who’ll carefully explain and demonstrate what to do differently right now to thrive and prosper.  And none of this expertise will cost you a penny to receive.

That’s right. It costs you nothing whatsoever. And you can only get it right here.

http://salvationsystem.com/jayabraham

With the League Of Extraordinary Minds, it’s like all these big-time consultants are right there in your office, leaning over your shoulder and showing you the map to wealth and success…

Fortune 500 companies pay some of these experts up to $250,000 a day for this type of access. And they do it without blinking, because the results they’ll get are worth BILLIONS of dollars in profits.

But you’re getting it for nothing. Nada. Zero. IF you move quickly.

http://salvationsystem.com/jayabraham

Because there’s a very limited number of people that Jay And Rich can take into this program. And the seats are filling up quickly.

So I wouldn’t wait if I were you–grab yours NOW before someone else does.

http://salvationsystem.com/jayabraham

I’ll see you inside…

P.S. Look, for years the richest corporations in the world have earned truckload after truckload of cash because of their exclusive access to this world-class brain trust…

These masterminds simply get the job done, They know how to quickly solve every problem, overcome every challenge and make the most of every opportunity.

But now, YOU have access to these experts too, courtesy of the League of Extraordinary Minds. And they’re ready and waiting to work for you–GRATIS.

You really going to pass this up?

http://salvationsystem.com/jayabraham

This is going to be candid blog post.

You see, over the past few months, me and my wife Laura have faced some of the most challenging battles in our short entrepreneurial life.

We were overworked…  Toiling 12 hours straight nearly every day…  And were on the verge of throwing in the towel.

It was as if we were sowing so much seed, yet seeing little fruit for our labor.

Yet 6 weeks ago, on the verge of hitting rock bottom… We stumbled across a startling secret that saved our skins and put us back on the track of rapid profitability.

I’ll reveal what this revolutionary principle is in a moment, for now I just want to lay the foundations.

Here’s a Biblical concept that the world readily agrees it…

“You reap what you sow…”

In other words, the more time, resources and energy you put into something, the bigger the harvest you’ll reap — be it financially, relationally or spiritually.

So if you put in your elbow grease and late nights, you’re guaranteed success right? WRONG!

Or more rather, the Sowing and Reaping analogy is only a half truth.

You see, we followed this principle to the tee… We “slaved like dogs”, yet we were “rewarded” with disappointment, stress and relationship strain.

Have you ever wondered why sometimes you work so hard, and yet don’t seem to reap the bountiful harvest you deserve?

Here’s something that may come as surprise for you…

There’s a missing dimension to the concept of sowing and reaping. If you miss this, you’re potentially setting yourself back months, even years from where you’re supposed to be.

In one of the Biblical parables, Jesus talked about the parable of the sower.

The gist of it was that the farmer was scattering seed across the land. However, he was rather indiscriminate about it and the seeds fell on stony paths, thorny soil, shallow earth and fertile ground.

The seeds that fell on the former 3 types of soil ended up with stunted growth, or worse… Not growing at all.

Here’s the awesome part…

The seed that fell on fertile ground produced a magnificent harvest of tenfold, hundredfold… and even a thousand-fold!

What made the difference?

It’s about WHERE the sower threw his seed.

That’s right. WHERE you sow is probably more important then HOW MUCH you sow.

It’s a principle we call STRATEGIC SOWING. And we believe it’s the single most important trait of mega-successful entrepreneurs.

Once you master this, you’ll get a return on investment that’ll blow your socks off. Because every ounce of blood, sweat and tears is going to give you a windfall.

One of the biggest bittersweet lessons we learned is that Laura and I may be world-class marketers, but we’re still newbies in terms of building a long-term sustainable business.

The single most vital trait that separates entrepreneurs from marketers is the ability to effectively allocate one’s limited resources. Unfortunately, it’s an ability that comes from hard-worn experience rather than any $997 home study course.

But hey, since we’re nice people and all, we’re going to reveal to you the top 5 areas you should strategically sow in (from our admittedly limited experience).

1) Alliances

As maligned as the whole “Guru Club” in our industry seems to be, it doesn’t change the fact that JVs work. In fact, I attribute networking to be the no.1 driver why the Puppet Master is where he is today in such a short time. However… Do note that you need to screen through the people you intend to partner with. Some are a complete waste of time. Some are middling. A few will deliver the breakthrough growth you crave.  Just don’t be over-eager especially if you’re new.

2) Content

As mentioned in an earlier blog post, it’s about articles, articles, articles. Google cares more about frequency of unique content than about the quality. So invest in a reliable ghost writing team, a spinning service like HumanSpinner and submission services like Easy Push Button Traffic, SENuke or Unique Article Wizard. As article marketing guru Jeff Herring says, “the bigger the number of articles, the bigger your other numbers will be.”  So get crankin’.

3) Basics

Ignore the fads out there. Marketers have made pushing your emotional buttons such an art form that they can make any product “the next big thing”. Learn to resist. Stop grabbing at every push-button solution. Most of it is crap. In fact, 90% of what I study seems to be just rehashed information. Master your internet marketing basics.

• Are you doing PPC?
• Are your sites optimized properly?
• Heck… Are you even using the right keywords to promote your site?

As a sidenote, keyword research is the most important skill you need to master. Get this wrong and all your efforts will be flushed down the loo.

4) List

Social media seems to be the craze, but honestly, the best response rates seem to come from the humble email mailing list. Even though open rates may be down industry wide, your autoresponder service is the most potent income-generating asset you may have. Build up the numbers and you can honestly pay off your mortgage, go for a safari in Kenya or buy yourself a new car with just ONE email blast.

Of course, don’t make it a pitchfest and give good content to build up the relationship you have with your list.

5) Character

This may sound surprising, but according to Seth Godin’s excellent blog post on the Hierarchy of Success,  without good character your strategies, tactics and execution are going to fall flat on its face.

I mean… If your mindset is “I’m doing this on the site for some (hopeful) part-time income”, you’re not going to make a million dollars online, are you? I knew a guy who was eager to learn so I hooked him up with some of my $1997 products. Guess what? Because he has such a crappy attitude, he’s now worse off than where he started. Read the Bible or listen to Dan Sullivan (my entrepreneurial guru du jour).

Whew, that comes to the close of my rather lengthy blog spot. Hope the Strategic Sowing principle impacts your business the way it did for the Puppet String Marketing business.

As an aside, I’m going to introduce something remarkable that’s worth the strategic sowing. I may not be the biggest fan of its title or its positioning but the principles inside contain some of the biggest shortcuts to running a super-profitable business.

Indeed, what I’m about to introduce is fertile soil, and every dollar you sow in WILL result in a bountiful harvest if you do what it says. Just opt-in to my mailing list by clicking on the button below to get further details soon.

So back to this post… What do you folks think? What are the biggest areas of strategic sowing you think I might have missed out? Feedback is most welcome, as always.