I cried during my birthday.

I mean, don’t get me wrong… My wife Laura planned a heck of a celebration, and it was a fun day.

Still, it was bittersweet. Maybe it was the realization that life isn’t as easy as we like it to be, or reflecting back on the ups and downs of the year that was. Maybe it was just the built-up toll of a year’s worth of hard lessons.

Maybe I’m just a drama queen. But these are 28 valuable lessons on marketing, entrepreneurship, social media and copy that I  learned over the past 1 year. Read it, take action and reap the financial rewards.

1) The More You Mail, the More Money You Make

Here’s something that may surprise you, the more blasts you send out, the more monetizable your list becomes. Keep making offers to your list with emails written in your own voice, and you’ll make money while filtering non-interested parties through their unsubscribing.

2) Twitter is Adwords-of-Mouth

If PPC is AdWords, Twitter is AdWords-of-mouth. PPC and Twitter’s similarity is that they’re really good lead generation tools, but really crap when it comes to sales pages. Like PPC, use it to build your list, not direct linking it to your affiliate link and hope to God for some sales. Twitter is pre-selling, not selling.

3) Work Ain’t Life

There were times during the past few months that I approached burn-out. Setting up a business from scratch is like giving birth to a baby… You invest your heart and soul for relatively little return. Remember that if you fizzle so does your business, so keep tabs on your mental health by taking constant breaks and vacations to stay refreshed.

4) BAD NEWS!

Through extensive testing, paparazzi headlines in the vein of National Enquirer or the Sun works wonders for your response rates. The press knows that well, negativity sells. Human nature is just inherently attracted to train wrecks. Inject a dose of doom and gloom into your sales letters and emails and enjoy positive returns.

5) The Answer is “Yes”

What’s the best traffic generation method? PPC… CPA… SEO… Banners… The answer is yes…. yes… yes… yes… All marketing techniques work, you just need to know the best practices. Master them one at a time with careful testing but master them all. The more mediums your customer encounters you, the more response they will be.

6) The E-Myth Revisited

Michael Gerber wrote what experts deem the “entrepreneur’s Bible” many years ago. The main thrust was most entrepreneurs work in their business, not on their business. This means most business owners get trapped in the day-to-day rather than doing things that actually bring profit like sales or maintaining JV relationships. Work towards outsourcing and begin to focus on the things that matter.

7) Your Online Marketing is Already Outdated

By the time you’re reading this, your closely-held SEO and PPC strategy has already halved in effectiveness. The internet marketing scene changes at the speed of light and you need to keep up. Keep track of the trends and what guru’s tout as the Next Big Thing because you know what? Cut through the hype you realize they’re right.

8.) Don’t Put Your Eggs in One Basket

Twitter is notorious for going down when you need them the most. I was in the prickly spot of having my rice bowl cut off simply because I could not do any money-getting efforts on my one-and-only marketing medium. Ouch. Diversify. Stop relying on ONE traffic method and you’ll be invulnerable to Google Slaps, Twitter Fail Whales and other system failures.

9) Above-the-Fold Placement, Above Average Results

When it comes to anything email marketing related, anything above the screen where the reader does not need to scroll down is the most optimal. So set up squeeze pages and landing pages that are strictly one-pages. Short emails tend to work better as well when you place all your copy above the fold. Test it and let me know.

10) The Microcosm Traffic Method

What’s a microcosm? A microcosm is a mini-ecosystem that’s a representation of the larger ecosystem as a whole. Google loves that–a huge network of sites that’s a hub of activity as a representative of that niche. When I implement this scientific principle into my traffic generation strategies, my results went through the roof. Watch this space when I unveil my master secret to the world.

11) Twitter is Better Than Conferences

Most experts say JVs you find at conferences can boost your profits through the roof. I say Twitter can have the same effect–minus the travel and accommodation expenses. I had not left my native country of Malaysia, but I’ll been securing speaking gigs and strategic alliances nearly effortlessly. Put your social skills to work and see the results.

12) Cling On to The Vision

The online marketing world works very much like the bricks-and-mortars one… There’s a lot of elbow grease involved and a lot of hard work. You can make money in your underwear, but that doesn’t reduce any of the blood, sweat and tears involved. In the times of maximum effort and minimum return, you need to hold on to Magnificent Obsession of why you’re doing what you’re doing.

13) The Magic Ratio

Getting responsive leads isn’t really a mystery–Give them things of value to soften up their credit crunch-harderned defenses, and then make an offer relevant to their needs. The ratio of value to offer differs from medium to medium For emails its 1:1. for Twitter is 5 value-laden tweets for every 1 self-promotional one. Your results may vary.

14) The Medium is the Message

You can’t take what works in one medium and apply it to another. What is acceptable as sales letter copy is downright intrusive as an email. That’s why you may be getting poor results with your social marketing. Each medium has its own tone, manner and language. Learn them and you’ll see stellar results coming from every front.

15) “You” Rock

Human beings are essentially self-serving creatures. That’s why the word “you” is the most alluring one in the English language. Good copy is about them, them, them. What your product or service can do for them. In fact, the easiest way to hypnotic copywriting is to use “you” as much as humanly possible in your copy. Try it.

16) Twitter = Traffic Domination

Once you mastered writing compelling tweets (something taught in the Twitter Salvation System), driving traffic to your website or blog is one of the easiest things on the planet. ReTweeting gives you viral traffic you otherwise can’t tap, and its all FREE traffic anyway. That’s how I own 60% of the entire Most Viewed Articles on EzineArticles for all my categories. Unfair advantage, I know.

17) Step Up Your Bum Marketing

Bum Marketing was one of the big buzzwords of the past few years… Write an article, direct them to your affiliate link, collect commissions. Unfortunately, this method has lost a lot of its effectiveness over the past year or so due to the massive increase in bum marketers. So ramp up your game, outsource your articles, spin them all and submit more unique articles to as many article directories and web 2.0 properties as possible. Which brings me to the next point…

18) Quantity, Not Quality

Quality content may be nice, but unfortunately, Google does not really distinguish quality content from mediocre ones. Google rewards consistency of unique content rather than the awesomeness of them. Do ensure that they’re somewhat passable in quality, but eschew Dan Brown quality writing for just loads and loads and loads of content in as may websites as possible.

19) Purpose Attracts

Humanity is repelled by purposelessness. Give a reason why to every aspect of your business–from the existence of your product to your offer to the tribe you created. Give your customers a purpose bigger than themselves, and you’ll raise yourself an army of word-of-mouth evangelists to spread your cause to the ends of the Earth.

20) Positioning Matters

One of the key reasons the Puppet Master has risen up the ranks in record speed is because of the unique personal brand I’ve created. If I were to become yet another Beach Bum or Everyman Marketer, I’ll probably will not experience the kind of results I’m getting, even with the same content. Ask yourself… What is the ONE THING you want to own in your prospect’s mindshare? And take the steps to own it.

21) Tweet in Blocks

This was one of the main breakthroughs in my Twitter marketing efforts. In the Twitter Salvation System I’ll reveal what blocks are the most effective and what content proves to convert the best. All I can say is that it has drastically simplified my Twitter lead generation and affiliate sales processes and increased overall profits by 34%.

22) The Other Side of Social Media

Most experts harp on the personal branding and customer connection side of social media. It’s all well and good, but you’re probably only experiencing a puny 17% of the upside if that’s all you’re using social media for. Google LOVES social media sites, and they’re amazing for backlinks. That’s one of the components of the Microcosm Traffic Method I’m working on, and you’ll start seeing social marketing in a new light real soon.

23) Twitter for SEO

On the subject of SEO, Twitter is often overlooked by Search Marketing experts because they don’t give any link juice. However, like Youtube and Facebook, their PageRank score is through the roof. Just do a few RSS submissions and social bookmarks and you’ll start seeing your tweets rank in the SERPs. My personal Twitter account is a Pagerank 5 site at the moment from this method.

24) Transcription Riches

Article writing can be tedious process. Unfortunately, it is also an essential one, because it is one of the key ways of getting traffic. Here’s a trick, record yourself talking, send your audio to Elance and get transcriptions done. Now you can cut-and-paste portions of the transcrips for instant articles!

25) The Fortnight of Fandom

Studies have shown your leads are hottest starting from the day they sign in and start tampering off after the 2 week mark. This apply for Twitter, Facebook and autoresponder marketing. That’s why the first 2 weeks should be the site of your most vigorous promotions. Strike when the iron is hot, that’s the most effective window of opportunity you got.

26) Facebook Followers are Different from Twitter Ones

Even in similar sites and the same niches, your followers respond differently to different topics for the different sites. That’s why I don’t really encourage the Twitter-to-Facebook app that’s so popular. You could be wasting your hot links on Twitter on a Facebook audience that’s disinterested. So find out what each of them want individually, and give it to them.

27) Even in Social Media, It’s About ROI

My pet peeve with the whole social media phenomenon is how much hype is thrown around but people have little results to show. When it comes to Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, Youtube,etc… you still need the numbers… A marketing channel is only one when it can be measured. By all means jump on to the bandwagon, but have your metrics in place.

28) People ReTweet Before They Read

This is killer. People tend to retweet stuff before they click on the link. It may sound insane but with the amount of noise on Twitter, they make snap judgements about what they pass on to their followers. Retweetable content includes lists, quotes, and weird/curiosity type tweets. Try constructing your blog post as a list and experience a surge of viral traffic.

Bonus Tip:

29) Never Compromise On Your Marriage

In the midst of busyness, it is possible to neglect your spouse. It was a wise pastor who once said with a strong marriage, you can conquer the world. But if you have a weak one, even minor obstacles seem like major ones. Keep your marriage strong and you’ll rise above the pressures of life.

That’s the condensed version from me, we can sit down over a cuppa if you’d like to hear more Do let me know your thoughts –for example, which of these tips do you find the most helpful? Would love your feedback in the Comments Section below.

Also… as a related aside, there’s only 24 hours left till we close out our Puppet String Marketing Birthday Promotion….

Get up to 41% off all Puppet String Marketing products.

Click here to get yours NOW!

P.S. If you already own one of either Twitter Mind Control or Twitter Salvation System, please email me at puppetstringmarketing [at] gmail [dot] com. We’ve had a few such requests and so we’ve prepared an extra special “ala carte” deal for you.

Swine Flu is the latest epidemic that’s hitting the news and causing worldwide panic, following the likes of Ebola, Bird Flu and J.E.

Already, it has already caused much chaos.

In a few short days, Swine Flu caused as many as 103 deaths in Mexico, and an additional 1,614 reported cases have been reported in Mexico.

In the US and across the world, emergency measures had been used to contain the virile spread of the virus. In fact, you see people wearing flu masks at a lot of the State airports, uncannily akin to a scene out of some killer disease apocalyptic future.

Now picture this, if you give it a positive spin, don’t you wish that your marketing messages had that kind of viral power?

Imagine sending out a promo link or blog post and getting 2,000 impressions in less than 5 minutes—without spending a red cent on PPC?

Or generating highly targeted traffic at will with all of a minute’s work? Or getting your name or brand spread across the far-flung corners of the web and hauling a treasure chest of profits?

You probably know the answer—Twitter. There’s a reason why is everyone and their grandmother is hyping Twitter as the ultimate viral tool. At least far better than those forced “tell-a-friend” scripts that fell flat on its face a little while back.

However, you might be wondering if this is—as expected by marketing press—sheer hype. You might be thinking, “why aren’t I getting the kind of ReTweets and Digg-effect traffic that the Big Guns like Mashable and Guy Kawasaki seem to enjoy?”

Of course, the fact they have hundreds-of-thousands of followers does help, but what about the rest of us? Some of the most viral-friendly Twitterers are in the achievable 5-6k range. Of course, I get an unbelievable a mount of traffic to my sites as well, 2-3k in a week or so. Free.

(Incidentally, I have mastered the art of getting as much as a thousand followers a day. But more of that in a bit.)

Here’s why.

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.

Here’s a radical theory… The more your viral marketing imitates the traits of an actual viral outbreak, the more widespread your messages can get. You find out more in a minute.

I got at least a dozen secrets to why I’m called “The Master Fisherman”, that I’m able to get the elevated clicks, response rates and ReTweets I do. Here’s just 3 of them—based traits off the “Swine Fever” virus explosion.

1) Mutation

Why the Swine Fever virus is so scarily contagious is because it is a mutation. Startlingly enough, the virus contains genetic code from bird, swine and human.

As a result, what originated as a bird flu strain mutated in pigs and is now able to spread into human form—with deadly effect.

The key factor to its spread is because of the virus’ ability to take new form. In the same way, your generic marketing message will get more potent when you combine it with new ideas to create something irresistible to the human attention.

Here’s a simple formula for you. Take a generic benefit and combine something TOTALLY unrelated to it. The mind is attracted to incongruence, as a result you click through something you perceive is weird, bizarre or curious.

So why not exploit this neurological quirk?

All you need to do is this:

Take a benefit like Twitter marketing, and you can write a Tweet that reads like “The Secret to Marketing on Twitter.” Solid, although unspectacular.

Now, let’s think of something that’s TOTALLY different from Twitter. Well, I just watched Charlie the Unicorn (which incidentally is a huge viral hit on Youtube). So now your Tweet can read like this:

The Miserable Unicorn Secret to Marketing on Twitter link Plz RT

Doesn’t that sound more intriguing? Something that makes it something somebody wants to pass on. Mutation is the shortcut to Twitter success.

2) Carriers

The Swine Flu would have lived and died with the pigs. Unfortunately, farm-hands handle them, and it spread to them. Internationally, it spreads to the handlers in various countries.

And then the morbid gifts go on, and the virus now spreads across the world.

So what makes the virus spread? Carriers. People who are susceptible to disease at that point in time and pass it to others.

In the same way, some of your followers are more predisposed to ReTweeting and forwarding your stuff. In fact, 80% of my Tweets are RTed by 20% of the same people over and over again.

So how do you infect them? Easy. Find out what they want and give it to them over and over again. It may seem strange, but the more your feed them their diet of interests, the more zealous they would be for your Tweets.

Crazy but true.

The Twitter Salvation System has several ways how you can read your prospect’s mind and make them fall in love with you—you are now their Tweet Knight in Shining Armor.

3) Sneakiness

One advantage that the Swine Flu virus and other epidemics have over us humans is the element of surprise. It’s because they take the form of everyday flu. Often when they realize it’s already too late.

Often, there are some human fatalities before people discover that a brand new disease is on the rise. By then, it has the potential to already be a worldwide scourge.

In the same manner, Twitterers often have a knee-jerk reflex to things, before they realize the actual content of the Tweet.

You read that right. Tons of Twitterers forward Tweets without actually looking at them. They make a snap decision in their mind’s eye and before you know it, your message is RTed by hundreds, even thousands of folks.

So how d0 you replicate that?

Easy. You write your Tweet to match the dominant emotion of your followers.

Dominant Emotion is the overall mindset and hot topic of the day that are top-of-mind for your prospects. The closer you are to them, the quicker they spread because its of relevance to them.

As a result, they spread Tweets on a subconscious level because it’s a topic that’s on their mind.

For example, one of my most successful Tweets ever contained the word “Oprah” in it. Because Oprah on Twitter was the biggest news, I have gotten a whopping 119 RTs and nearly 2000 click-throughs in a space of 5 days.

Not bad for a no-namer.

As you can tell, that’s why I used the term “Swine Flu” in my blog post title. It’s because I want to make sure each and every piece of marketing material I send out becomes a viral hit.

… Wait, did I just say marketing material?

Yes, I must admit I am selling something. And what I’m doing now is to whet your appetite. Twitter Salvation System 2.0 is launching tomorrow, and I’m working day and night to have all the components in place.

However, instead of doing tired “Buy or Die” tactics, I decided to give you some sound advice to demonstrate the full potential that my little labor of love can do for your business.

Indeed, I used the very same 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 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.

You’re in? Great!

Your Twitter Salvation is Here

Some people on Twitter have wished me ill. Somebody even asked me to choke to death.

Why do I incite such animosity?

It’s because I have a way of doing business on Twitter that ticks off a lot of people.

I have opinions on doing Twitter marketing that ruffles a lot of feathers.

And before you go on, a warning to people who do not use Twitter for marketing nor use Twitter for business: with all due respect, if that’s the way you connect on Twitter; if you don’t actually use Twitter to make money online, then you don’t have to read on because this blog post isn’t for you.

It’s for those who want to make money on Twitter and want to know what the fuss is about on Twitter in terms of marketing and business-building online.

This is, in a sense, an open letter to all my haters, and this is my totally biased opinion on how to do Twitter marketing online.

There are several objections I get on my Tweetstream from the people who write back to me. They’re generally very nice people and they write back to me asking why I do things the way I do. Now, I’m going to address 3 such objections.

The first is this:

1. Why do I tweet so much?

Most people equate a lot of tweeting — or tweeting the same tweet over and over again — as being a spammer. But I say sometimes, it’s necessary because there’s just so much noise on Twitter. Most people follow more than 30 people on Twitter, and statistically, if you follow more than 30-50 people, you will already be overwhelmed with tweets. And 30-50 is just the bare minimum.

Most people follow between 400-500 to 1000 people on Twitter. How do you keep up with everybody if you’re following so many people? The bottom line is this: your message will actually get lost is a crowd of 500-600 people; you need to shout louder in order to be heard.

You might have the most well-crafted tweet in the world with the best copy, and the best headline or bullet, but if nobody sees it, there’s no point. And that is why I Tweet as much as I do. I don’t tweet this way about a lot of things though– only when there’s a launch or something coming up, and I want to get a lot of traffic to one site. I have done my research — the more you tweet, the more traffic you’ll get.

It’s the same way in which if you’re doing autoresponder marketing, the more emails you send out, the more money you make.

Of course, the thing to really consider is this: are you willing to ruffle the few feathers that will be annoyed? Because the truth is, some people will be annoyed. Are the people you’re bringing in through the funnel enough to supplement/make up for those who unfollow you? That is what you have to ask yourself.

If you are not brave enough to do this, please don’t.

2. Kenneth, why aren’t you using Twitter to build a relationship?

Isn’t Twitter about building relationships? Why are you just trying to sell stuff?

The thing is, Twitter IS about building relationships, it is. But what’s the end result you want on Twitter? Is it to have a good time? Do you have a service you want to introduce to the world? Is it to interact with the people you connect with?

Those are all good reasons, but if you’re a marketer who’s using Twitter to measure ROI, to spread your product and boost your sales, if you’re using it as a marketing channel, then you need to look at your relationships form a profit-potential point of view.

Don’t get me wrong. I am about relationships. There are many people that like me.  If you look at the favourites tab in my Twitter profile you’ll see that I’ve got tons and tons of raves because I do give out a lot of value and a lot of content, and I do get a lot of retweets.

I really do want to talk to everyone and converse with everyone, but the only problem is time — you can’t be on the Tweet stream the whole day.

And that’s the little sneaky confession I’m making, I do use automated posts/tweets from time to time in order to allow me to stay on top of things (because I now have a wife, and I need to take care of my wife; if I tweet too much she’s gonna divorce me).

At this point in time, you want to create relationships that make your followers so familiar and so friendly with you that they will trust you and hand you over their money to. They’ll even spread your marketing messages (which my fans do).

I believe I’ve cracked the code to doing this; there is a reason why I’m called the Puppet Master. And that is because I use accelerated intimacy techniques rooted in human psychology and in a bit of persuasion in order to simulate a bond that otherwise wouldn’t be there.

I mean, you can take the hard way and take 10years to build a following, or you can use what I use and get fans and followers who are warm to you from the first tweet, from the time they follow you. These are some of the powerful strategies I have in my arsenal.

The other objection is this:

3. Why do you follow so many people, since you can only keep up with a few?

For me, the answer is this: that’s a valid but misguided mindset. Because when you follow tons of people, it’s not about you – it’s about them.

You see, in a recent article from TechCrunch, they said that Twitter is a thought-stream, which basically means that Twitter is a stream of people’s hopes, fears, dreams, thoughts, comments and opinions.

What you have right now is probably the most powerful marketing device in the world. If you only follow a few people, that’s alright too — but you only get updated with your group of friends, your own clique.

You won’t really know what’s going on in the marketing world, though, because not even Google can tell you what Twitter can.

TechCrunch says that while Google is good for what people are searching for at the moment, Twitter is amazing for what people are thinking of at the moment.

Robert Collier said that the key to good marketing is to enter the conversation in your prospect’s mind, and Twitter is one big conversation. I use Twitter for Psychic Market Research.

Right now, at my fingertips, I know what works instantly. I know that when I tailor my marketing in a certain way, people will bite; I mean look at how many retweets I get for my links; how many click-through I get for my tweets — they work because this is what people want, and I’m just giving it to them. That is why I’m wildly successful at what I do.

These are only 3 of the objections — there are probably a lot more issues that we can address, but if you want to know more about them, I encourage you to sign up for the Twitter Salvation System Teleseminar that I’ll be hosting this Tuesday night, 31st March, 9pm EST.

I invite you aboard to sample and witness my unorthodox style of doing Twitter marketing. Again, it’s a free call: no strings attached.

There a re a lot of ways to do Twitter Marketing online, but I believe although other methods may works, my methods works and is proven. you can check ROI, you can track and test, you can really build your presence online not on touchy-feely things like being a rockstar but on how to really build a business online using what I believe to be the most powerful marketing device on earth.

I welcome you and ask you to come aboard.

UPDATE: The call replay is available here: