Information marketing has a magical element in it that most salespeople and top marketers have known about for years. It’s the fine art of sharing “valuable” information to prospects, with “no” expectation of a sales or anything else for that matter to come from it. This in itself is an extremely powerful concept if you use it correctly.

So what does this process do for you? Well, it allows you to “give” something of immense value, to someone (a prospect) who desperately needs that information.

Please, don’t go and plagiarize articles exactly, but rather take the idea, put your own flavour, ideas, personality and experience to it, that will then be 100% unique, and I guarantee you that you’ll never, ever, be without ideas for information marketing this way.

If you can share a little about yourself with prospects both online and offline, and show them that you’re a credible and trustworthy source, then their going to feel “comfortable” with you and the process you use to sell (which is basically “not sell” but “inform”)…

Now lets expand on this concept of information marketing and how it’s used in society, to help masses of people buy without even being sold to.

Magazines and television documentary shows on new products emerging on the market and the reviews they do with industry experts see’s us driving to the stores that are recommended at the end of the article or program in the hoards to “buy” with very little interaction with the salespeople required.

A few of the greatest example for online marketing that I’d like to show you and for you to learn from and use, are:
- How-to’s
- Checklists
- Directories
- Statistics
- Measuring tools
- Industry-specific reviews
- Calendars
- Addresses
- Phone numbers
- Web links
- Conversion tables
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Glossaries
- Calculations
- Formulas
- Q&A’s
- Wikepidia.com
- Blogs
- Step-by-step reports
- YouTube.com
- Facebook.com
- Squidoo.com
- Reviews
- Article Marketing
- White papers
- Online Website-Buildit.com

By using the above ideas, resources and websites you will come across so much information and ideas to “give” to your clients, they’re going to recognize you as the industry expert very quickly if you just keep producing and sharing yourself and who you are and what you’re about on a deeper level, you’re going to be discovered and related to.

The whole time you’re creating these information pieces you’re going to be gently positioning yourself as the knowledgeable guide who “connects” with your target audience. This is such an incredibly powerful and authentic way to go about business, that you’ll find people who you’ve never spoken with before connecting with you and saying they feel like they know you well. All because they jumped into your persona and followed your stories, articles and information for some time before they met you (this is very “POWERFUL” for both online and local offline marketers and salespeople)!

Something to be aware of is, the online world is full of copied articles done by others, this is called “PLR” which is short for “Private Label Rights”.

What I’ve found is using ghost writers and PLR products will never be as authentic as taking your knowledge and writing it from your own experience and expertise. So unless you have a great writer who understands your style of writing and thought processes, then you’ll be better off doing this yourself initially.

Even if you find yourself stuck for an idea, try going into Google and type the topic your wanting to write about, and look for savvy information online for “Ideas” only.

I hope that at least some of the above ideas have helped you to decide to “begin” using information of some sort, to build trust, authenticity and credibility into your business even more than there is now.

________________________________________

Adam Price is a full time internet marketer and the founder of Nett Knowledge, a company that helps business owners find and plug the profit gaps in their website strategy. His websites are www.NettKnowledgeBlog.com & www.Magic-Minisites.com

You might be wondering how to get great exposure online, and how the top marketers, salespeople and high achievers reach their goals?

Well, there really isn’t any magic in it at all… One of the largest ways companines gain the approval of their colleauges, prospects and existing clients, is via word of mouth marketing, otherwise now known as viral marketing.

And the best way to do viral marketing is with online and offline viral “tell-a-friend” forms that are natural to talk about and explain.

Today I’ll give you a quick example of how you might do this with an online store:

1. You have a client eihter existing or new come to your site and gain access to your program / service / product.
2. You give them such a fantastic experience that they feel obligate to tell their friends to repay you.
3. You setup a viral friend generator script that you can get from Mike Filsaime

Once you have a strategy like this in place, and the viral friend generator will hep you along here, you’ll see you’re income, web traffic and viral discovery of your site will explode exponentially.

You see the beauty of having a viral friend form, when married into an online promotion can lead to a massive amount of people finding out about you, and guess what?… There going to stay on your site and buy from you moreso if they’ve been recommended, even by an online viral friend generation form.

So I urge you to use this massively successful form of marketing, as it’s free, easy and effective!

Today I’m being a bit lazy with my writing, however I just found 3 very good blog posts in my research around Viral Marketing and how you can use it, from some other very good blogs and marketers.

So I thought why not share with you, my valuable readers, some outside thoughts and knowledge that other great internet marketers have to teach.

Here are they for you, please feel free to comment and let me (and them) know your thoughts, questions and comments.

Elements of a successful viral marketing campaign
Viral marketing is a technique that is more commonly being used by brands online these days, however take caution, the chances of your viral campaign being a flop are as good or better than having it take off. …

Viral Marketing for Small Businesses
In my experience and research, I’ve found that viral marketing can be a positive or negative advertising method. Some companies use it correctly while others let campaigns turn negative and spiral out of control. …

Create a Buzz: Grassroots Viral Marketing For Regular People
While it can be very powerful, it’s not easy to create a viral marketing campaign, unless you have tens of thousands of followers on Twitter, hundreds of friends on Facebook, lots of subscribers on YouTube, and a large and responsive …

I certainly hope you enjoy these posts as much as I did!

There is currently a growing trend of internet based network marketing programs available online, there is also a lot of jargon and hype around which one is the best company to work with.

Being an internet marketing coach and sales coach for the past several years, and also deriving my income solely from online sources over the past 4 years, I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to internet based network marketing programs.

Having chosen to not take part in any particular company due to the hype that their online presence represents, I would still consider the accomplishments of my clients (quite a few of them participating in such programs) to be quite exemplary.

A lot of my coaching revolves around firstly, helping internet marketers in such programs understand the mindset of new people coming to their main website and watching those terrible videos that a lot of them display.

Here are some useful tips you might decide to use, if your particular company uses one of those generic, highly energized videos on your main opportunity introduction page:

1. If you can talk with your prospects before they go to this page, because eventually they will need to see it, try explaining to them that the site is somewhat hypey, but please don’t take that as a sign of how you personally operate. This will diffuse any feelings of angst from them when they watch it, knowing that you don’t operate in such a way.

2. If you get your leads solely from online marketing sources and I know a lot of my clients get 100’s of leads per day doing it this way from the formulas I teach them, then you need to lead them to a page that “ISN’T” your main opportunity page, lead them to your blog, or another information profile page about you first, preferrably a page with a video or audio of you so they feel more comfortable with your “low-pressure” approach up front.

3. Create a social presence online, have your Facebook, MySpace and Twitter profiles setup and encourage them to follow you from your page or information based website in step 2, this is a fantastic way of building “Authentic” trust with your prospects and “Allowing” them to buy, rather than the opposite, online information and lots of it is key.

That pretty much sums up some of the vital points I wanted to discuss with you today in this topic around making internet based network marketing work better for you, no matter what company your with, I hope it helped you in some way.

There are different ways you can go to create an online income.  Many choose the affiliate route and sell other people’s products for a cut of the proceeds.  Still others find success with creating and selling their own products. 

Creating an informtion marketing product can be a lot of work, especially if writing is not one of your strong suits, and creating a product can take a fair chunk of your time.  But there are ways around both these problems and I’ll explain 3 easy ways to have a product ready to promote in no time.

Interview experts in your niche.  This is not hard to do and several in-depth interviews can make for a really great product.  It does require a little work in trying to find the experts and pin them down to a time when you can do the audio interview.  You also need to come up with some really good questions. 

Be aware of the experts’ time and don’t go on and on.  The more people you have to interview, the longer it takes to put it all together.  Generally, the fewer the interviews, the smaller the product and the faster it will get done.

Turn PLR into an information marketing product.  You can do this by starting with PLR article bundles, adding value, and turning them into an ebook or report.  Add value by adding to the articles with further explanations, examples, and personal stories. Include photos from istockphotos.com or Flickr.com, plus any graphics to make the report or ebook look more professional.  Turn the whole thing into a PDF and it’s ready to go out the door.

You can also take a product that you have PLR to and do the same thing.  Change the name, add lots of value, take it to the next level.  I suggest you get new graphics done for the header and the ebook cover.  The time you spend making it original is worth it, and it certainly takes less time to do this than to create a product from scratch.

Put together articles from an article directory.  Find several articles that complement each other in the same niche that would make a great report when put together.  Contact the authors and ask permission for what you want to do.  They should be happy to give you permission as it’s extra exposure for them.  You can either agree to leave their bio after their article or put all the bios at the end of the report on a resources page.  Put these articles together while adding a paragraph at the end of each to make it flow smoothly (segue) into the next.

Try one of these easy ideas for creating an information marketing product and I think you’ll find it’s not as hard or as lengthy a process as you imagined it would be.  Now you’re a product creator and with your new-found confidence you should be able to produce products quickly on demand.

 
I’ve found all of the above to work really efficiently and a tool that I use quite regularly that really helps me step through the process of e-product development thoroughly is called the info product dashboard, and I use just as much now as an expert, as I did when I was a raw newbie.

I hope this helps you move forward in some way to create your first product (or your next product to sell online).

I’ve been coaching a number of internet network marketing teams over the last few years, and one of the largest problems they face as a whole (no matter what opportunity they represent) is their lead capture pages.

Quite frankly a lot of the lead capture pages for this industry are “rubbish” their too hyped up, and generally give a feeling of “we’re desperate to get your business” and that puts prospects guards up.

Actually, I urge you to follow these ideas even if your not an network marketer, becuase the same principals apply in what the MLM’ers refer to as “traditional business” so make a point of studying this.

Below I’ve put a video about an online tool called “Instant MLM Squeeze Pages” which in my opinion offers some of the best looking squeeze pages that I’ve seen for operators in this niche who are just starting out. Obviously, there are more upmarketing and savvy options (if you want to pay $97 / month upwards like “Lead Page Generator 5.0″ which is brilliant) but you do have to pay more and if you’re starting out, you need “Automation” as much as possible to get you started, because the overwhelm of starting any business is massive, and over time you can come back and polish your skills in specific areas whcih I highly recommend you start doing as soon as you can.

Here is my 10 minute review of Instant MLM Squeeze Pages software and also some very good resources they offer along the way in “educating” thier market… I’m in no way affiliated with this software, but I firmly believe offering this review and information to you will help you in moving forward in your business, becuase “it is a minefield” out there for MLM’ers and I know this from first hand from coaching 1000’s of them personally.

Enjoy your video below…

You may be wondering what viral marketing examples you could model and implement in your own business. Here are a few ideas that might help you get your story out there and see your viral marketing campaign really grow it’s own legs.

There are multiple formats you can use to create a viral mareking campaign, you could use email, video, audio / podcasts, ebooks and documents. The important factor here is to ensure that you offer a massive amount of value for whatever it is you give, this will essentially ensure your success. If per chance you campaign doesn’t take off as it should, always go back and re-explore your content and the quality of the content you’ve given away.

The first example could be a pure viral marketing campaign, where you offer an ebook, but before they get the ebook you offer a piece of software that is otherwise sold for $X’s and is very valuable on it’s own, but if they refer your free offer to 5 of their friends and thier friends actually opt-in, then it will unlock the free software for the person referring them.

This functionality is created by a bit of software called “Viral Friend Generator” and it’s extremely powerful and customizable in it’s use, so in essence it will fit any marketing campaign that you’re looking at doing.

The second example, would be where you have your product / service offered to a JV list (a JV stands for Joint Venture) and is particularly powerful if you know how to create them correctly. You might research a number of JV hubs through Google, find a partner that has a sizeable list and is open to promoting your product as an add-on benefit to the product he is selling online. This allows your product to be sold or passed on as a valuable addition, and will see people visiting your site, contacting you, opting in to your email lists as they absorb your materials.

The third example is probably one of the more difficult to pull off, and that is the pure viral marketing campaign that goes viral all of it’s own accord. You don’t see many of these around, but when they happen, they happen big time. Examples of these are, Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, Twitter, Skype and so on, because people now ask you, do you have and account with any one of those so they can connect with you, you then go and get the account and feel it wasn’t pushed down your throat, or you were bribed to join.

Mobile phones also have a very rapid absorption rate of viral methodologies, ring tones are a classic. As you download a ring tone, your friends decide they like and ask you to bluetooth it to their phone, it’s just a simple matter of “point and click” and they then have your ring tone (or virus) and so the whole thing replicates easily from there.

How can you apply these in your business?

Your business can use these by placing ads in papers, online, yellow pages, networking hubs both online and offline, where you offer a very easy to claim offering.

The key that all good viral marketing examples share is their ease of spreadability, you need to offer something that can be used right away, collected easily, and cancelled easily also if they wish, otherwise you’ll kill the virus before it really starts.

Here’s a real world example of a viral campaign, I’ve recently been looking at online CRM (Client Retention Manager) software,  and found a couple of great options, one being Oprius and the other is WT Powers. My ending option was that of Oprius only becuase it was so “Simple” to signup for their 30 day free trial, both of these programs have a 30 day free trial, but the most viral one was Oprius, because it allowed me to signup “FAST” and with no details whatsoever.

This is music to other peoples ears hearing such information, but the other program while I feel it could have been superior, didn’t have the ease or speed of setup that Oprius did. When I told my coaching clients about this, they all signed up to Oprius to trial it, because it was a no-hassle signup (in other words “VIRAL”).

I hope this has helped you understand some real world applications on viral marekting examples.

Over the past 20 years or so there’s been a lot of network marketing success for a select group of people who either through luck, sheer determination, a large network of contacts or plain business savvy have made it in this style of business networking.

However, due to some very unsavoury tactics utilized by large network marketing groups and the individuals within them, your internet marketing success is somewhat limited these days. Unless of course you change the way you go about how you do things, i.e. “work smarter, instead of push harder!”

Being in sales myself for the past 15 years, and a sales coach for the past 5 for a program call Unlock The Game, I’ve coached people to network marketing success in all countries around the world, and been involved with a number of them in the past. And the one thing that I’ve observed over the past 10 years is the massive change that has occurred in the way these companies are run.

For example, one of the first companies I was in, was at first sight, a very polished and “low-pressure” company, to the extent of spending quite a number of several hour sessions with me “just so I could be bedded in” to their way of working. But as things progressed and after the initiation phase, joining up and starting with them, the pressure began.

Other companies are high pressure right from the start, while others try to have no human contact at all, because they work purely online via online presentations. So as you can see, we as a population of normal everyday people, wishing to make an extra buck on top of our jobs, have been bombarded with many different angles to try and lower our defences.

So with a firm background in both experiencing and coaching network marketers, and having a very solid internet marketing consulting background I’ve realized there are a number of things that need to change for your network marketing success.

Learn how to take “The Pressure” out of the process all together!

What do I mean by this?… Well it appears that no matter how low pressure some of these companies come across, there is still the underlying current of pressure. Maybe not to join immediately, but rather “If you’re comfortable, would you like to explore your options further?”

Now, from my experience and if I was coaching you personally I would say that the statement “If you’re comfortable, would you like to explore your options further?” while it’s not a full on “in your face” question, it’s still wreaking of pressure, and how do we respond to pressure by and large? By avoiding the subject all together, so we divert the topic or make up some excuse so we “don’t” have to get involved.

You see, if there is even a small inkling of pressure or some form of hidden agenda in a sales process, then you’re going to “silently repel” your prospects, more than you might be aware of, believe me I’ve seen this happen and when I point this out to my coaching clients over the phone they are stunned.

The responses that I’ve had from people chasing network marketing success tell me all the time “I thought my approach was low pressure!”… NOOOOO, far from it. You see, it’s not so much just the words we say, it’s the way we say them that can put someone on guard secretly also.

If you would like to learn more on how to go about this properly and to begin have “real” and “honest” open conversations with your prospects, then have a look at the Unlock The Game program at http://www.Unlock-The-Sales-Game.com and be sure to get the free tips that the sales guru’s don’t know I’ve heard from clients that I’ve coached in that program that just those tips alone have turned their business around without even spending a zac on training, which makes me feel very good indeed.

Now, interacting, prospecting and following up leads in your network marketing business (or any other business) isn’t the only activity you need to master. You need to learn the skill of how to get “highly qualified” leads coming to you in the first place, these leads need to be completely open and trusting of you “before” you speak with them… How is this possible you might ask?… Simple, build their trust in advance online first!

HOW?

By reviewing and describing in your own words and detail, your experience with network marketing or your company online first. This way there is “no threat,” those who want to contact you will, and those who don’t wont.

You might even offer some form of free course on the knowledge that you’ve accrued over time about network marketing and your company. But… BUT… I have to warn you, no hype or even any sprinkling of getting them to join, otherwise you’re going to lose them!

The reason why the majority of these online network marketing success presentations fail is they ooze “join now” throughout them. This pressure of “watch the video, then I’ll be in touch with you to see what you thought of it” is pressure, pressure and you guessed it pressure… Please avoid this or programs like it, like the plague.

If you are in a program that does have such a plan, at least talk to them calmly first and say to them, “I don’t expect you to move forward in any way with what you’re going to see, I’m not about pressuring that’s exactly the opposite of who I am… If you like what you see and want it for yourself, we can have a chat, but I won’t be hounding you… Are you ok with that?”

I guarantee you, if you talk to your leads from online like this, they are going to be very warm and open to you, but please, don’t take advantage of their state of openness once you do get them to this point, otherwise it will backfire on you.

If you’re wondering how is the best way to get leads online, I have to say that a company call Site Build It (SBI) is in my opinion the most stable way to do any sort of marketing online. Please check it out and see for yourself from their wealth of knowledge and their growing number of network marketing success stories from users who have harnessed it’s full potential.

I’ve also come across a few “very surprising” programs (as a sales trainer in the past, I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly), and these few I’m about to mention are superior to anything I’ve seen if you are in the network marketing industry and would like to develop a network marketing success program for yourself.

They openly endorse the SBI (Site Build It) system for building and growing your lead base, and their methods can be adapted to any business. I believe between SBI and the low cost systems below you can create a very effective marketing blue print and effectively magnify your network marketing success.

Anyone with the right copywriting tips can create amazing marketing copy. And each time you look at what good copywriting is based on, you’ll find some key elements are in place.

Now the gurus are going to try and confuse you with all their different acronyms for how they write compelling copy, but it all boils down to the same thing.

IntroducingWho, What, Where, When, Why and How!

It sounds rather simplistic doesn’t it? And that’s where most go wrong, they try and overcomplicate the process when they really don’t need to.

These principals will work for direct market copywriting, online copywriting and offline copywriting.

If you focus on the following 5 copywriting tips you’ll never go wrong:

1. Create simple, easy to read, brief and potent. Don’t make the mistake of overwriting (i.e. don’t use a mallet to kill a mosquito)!

2. Use low-pressure angles to build trust with your reader rather than hyped up headlines that are so common these days, and really they only work on “suckers” and no-one wants to be thought of as a sucker. Using words like “Act Now” or “Limited Offer” are only going to antagonise people and trickery isn’t the way to winning “Long Term” sustainable, trusting clients. I don’t know of any other copywriting tips that tell you to do the opposite of writing a “call to action” but trust me on this, it’s what you need to do to be effective!

3. Be honest in everything you write, do and say. Concentrate on building your credibility through social marketing online and networking events and speaking offline. If you make wild claims then you had better be sure that you can back it all up, or it will haunt you forever. Therefore, using Guarantees are great, but don’t make a 300% money back guarantee if you can’t cover it or your product / service isn’t red hot!

4. Over deliver. Make an offer that is so valuable to the reader that it’s going to make them feel completely “Comfortable” so they feel like they’re a customer even before they buy. If what you write is something you would keep and or, tell your friends about then it’s more than likely going to be valuable to your readers also.

5. Most copywriting tips often adress how long or short, your copy letter should be, and the answer is, it should be to fully get your message across! Don’t get this confused with “waffling” on to try and fill out the letter. A useful exercise is to keep asking about your product “What Else?” and write down every angle, point, positive, negative that you can think of and go through the “what else?” exercise until you can’t personally think any more on it.

Then when you can’t think of any more, give your letter to some of your most respected colleagues, family, friends to read it and get their “honest” critical feedback. You’ll find there are “Tonnes” of holes in it that you’ll be able to plug up before your piece goes live.

The secret reason “why” most sales copy is so darn long, is the hidden, psychological fact that the more time invested in something, whether it be a sales letter, a sales person presenting a solution, a relationship or whatever, the more likely the chances of that relationship sticking!

Now in a sales sense, the more time you spend reading one of those long letters, you’re “NOT” being hypnotised, but your being “acclimatized” to that writers personality, and the more you read, the more trust you have and time you’ve invested, which in the end makes you comfortable and you buy.

It’s the closing “HYPE” at the end of the sales letters that make you feel bad about buying, not the actual process of buying that makes you sometimes get buyers remorse. So the hint here is, take out all the hype and replace it with trust triggers that endear your readers to you, you’ll be thanking me later for this one tip! But when you mix it with the other copywriting tips above, you have a very good arsenal to write effectively with.

So in reality, you don’t have to be a top notch professional to write great copy, but rather, be a good connector with your target market, offer value and understand the depths of your niche.

Once you go through this process, you’ll be well ahead of the game in creating a top notch, high converting sales campaign. I hope these copywriting tips have proven to be useful for you, take them and use them to your benefit.

Learn more copywriting tips by visiting my Internet Marketing Business Blueprint site.

You know I’ve been getting a lot of questions information marketing and how can it help my clients improve their online marketing.

My response has always been the same, in stating that information is the only “Real” way to really make a difference to long term rankings and success for their businesses.

People then go on to ask me, “Is there an easy way to create those 150 odd pages of content?” and my short answer is “No, not if you want to be completely unique and most authentic in your education of your market”.

You’re much better off writing your own content from the knowledge in your head, than having a writer do it for you, and believe me there are tonnes of great writers out there, I’ve used quite a few of them but have never, ever, been as happy with the articles from even the highest paid writers.

WHY?

Because the writers don’t have your mindset and style, they don’t have the depth of knowledge you do about your business and even if they do, they cannot angle their message as personally as you do.

This leaves you feeling frustrated, and thinking that you should have written the darn article yourself and “You Should Have!”

You’re in business for long term growth, therefore every ounce of effort you put in now means that down the track you’re going to experience exponential results for your effort.

The great thing about information marketing is you can re-purpose it to fit many different formats, creating ebooks, blogs, article marketing posts, videos, audios and podcasts, seminar series and even full blown e-products that you can sell for hundreds if not thousands (depending on how much information you amass).

This of course is a gradual process, and I would recommend you first get hold of Site Build It and also look into creating a wordpress blog, which you can re-use the articles you make from your Site Build It website and quickly re-work some of it and you have unique information for your blog.

Then the next step is to pump those articles out into article hubs such as Submit Your Article which is really kewl and allows you to go through a 10 minute process of what’s known as “Spinning” your article into many new versions all at once and then submits to the top 100 or so article hubs on the net (the premium article hubs) and it’s all controlled completely by you, I use this process and it brings enormous results over time.

The other very good article marketing program is called Article Marketer and it allows you to only use one version, but it submits that one version to thousands of article hubs and really completes the process of submission that Submit Your Article doesn’t cover.

Between all of the above methods of information marketing you will create greater exposure and targeted traffic to your existing website that may not be drawing much traffic, or you could monetize (make money) from these information sites directly.

There are many ways of monetizing and that will be for another day.

I invite you to comment and let me know what are some of the challenges your having with information marketing, how are you overcoming these challenges, and what are you doing in general with your information marketing.

I look forward to hearing from you.

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