Neil Shearing’s Internet Marketing Strategies

Just a quick note to add this to your diary, if you’re around tonight…

Michael Campbell’s next live streaming video show will be Wednesday May 21 2008, starting at 7:PM Pacific Time.

Sadly, I won’t be able to watch the live show because it starts at 3AM in England and I really need my beauty sleep (or so everyone tells me!).

If you can watch the show, do so. I’m sure it’ll be packed full of useful Internet marketing hints and tips.

Has anyone else noticed a new type of blog comment spam where the spam comment directly copies a previous comment on the same post?

You can see an example here…

Notice how the first comment and the last comment are identical?

The first comment is genuine, the last comment is spam, and I’ve removed the link to the website from it.

I’m thinking that this must be automated, but I use a captcha plugin which requests a little code is entered before accepting a comment, so, unless that has been hacked, the person must be visiting the site.

It’s the second time I’ve seen “comment copy spam” at the blog and I’m wondering if it’s a new type of blog spam. Preumably the spammer is copying an earier comment to try to be “relevant” to the blog post.

Is anyone else seeing it?

If you haven’t already seen this, check it out.

Aweber, a big autoresponder company, have released some very interesting email marketing statistics such as which days do most emails get sent and which days get the highest open rates.

The overall average open rate is an astonishingly small 13%.

Wow. 87% of emails sent from Aweber don’t even get opened.

I wonder what it is for GetResponse… :p

I’ve stuck with plain text emails, which means I can’t determine open rates… but I’m thinking it’s an important metric to track, so I may switch to sending HTML emails.

What do you think?

Dave And Heidi Perry at Home Business Online are having a sale to celebrate reaching PR5.

They say it’s hard to reach PR5 nowadays. Tell me about it. This blog has been stuck at PR4 forever, and I’m starting to think I may have to actually promote it to get to PR5! :p

Congratulations to Dave and Heidi, whose names I recognise as “old school” marketers… although I’m not totally sure why… perhaps they bought ads in my old newsletter or are members of my affiliate program.

So, the deal with their sale is… if you buy one or more of the product they’re selling (from as little as $5) you also get two nice backlinks.

Cool. I just picked up a couple of products and have claimed my links.

I think it’s an interesting question… Do You Want To Be More Connected?

First there was snail mail, then the telephone, then the Internet and email. Unfortunately, spam ruined email (mostly) so people migrated to “closed circuit social websites” such as Facebook and Myspace.

Now there’s Twitter, where people are constantly exchanging notes… it’s much more personal and immediate than email.

Another service that’s immediate is video streaming via sites such as Ustream, where you can continuously broadcast your webcam feed, and if anyone wants to see your empty chair, they can!

The overall goal seems to be to facilitate quicker, real-time connections to many more people without the drawbacks of spam and other email deliverability problems.

With “live” services such as Twitter and uStream, you have the ability to let millions of people know that you’re available instantly and respond, in real time, to their contact… which helps connect people and build relationships.

They say that people can only maintain a maximum of ten close personal relationships, but how does that apply to social networking? Can you have hundreds, or thousands of social contacts and keep up with the volume of messages such a network will naturally generate?

Do these “live” services scale?

I guess not. Ed Dale says in this movie that he simply can’t follow all the people on Twitter who are following him.

So, services such as Twitter and uStream allow you to reach many, many people… but after a certain number of subscribers is reached, people have to follow, without reciprocation, because otherwise you would drown in the sea of messages.

Using new, “live” technologies to reach as many people as you can, while also limiting the amount of exposure you have to a manageable level, will be the balancing act of the next few years.

What do you think…?

Alex Poole has a really interesting story about the power of the blogosphere.

On May 7th, Alex created a blog post complaining about the lack of an unsubscribe link in some emails sent out by Planet Ocean (the search engine optimization specialists, run by Stephen Mahaney who made my list of top-10 Internet marketers who influenced me the most).

According to Alex, the problem was with Planet Ocean’s “please come back” emails, which lacked unsubscribe links, and he blogged about how annoying it was to be asked to “come back” repeatedly without having an unsubscribe link.

Alex has now updated his post with an email he received from Planet Ocean saying…

—
We’ve recently learned that you are unhappy with our unsubscribe policy. While we are complying with all CAN-SPAM regulations by providing an email link to our customer service department, we understand that some users prefer an actual “unsubscribe” link. With that in mind, future mailings from Planet Ocean will now include an unsubscribe link to make it easier for recipients to opt out of our offers.

We hope you are enjoying your current subscription to SearchEngineNews.com. Please feel free to contact us directly if you have any questions or concerns in the future.

Aloha & Best Regards,
Kristi Hagen - VP
—

So, within a week, Alex’s post has resulted in direct action by Planet Ocean. Congratulations to Alex for saving other people from the frustration and annoyance he was experiencing.

Also, congratulations to Planet Ocean for monitoring what their customers were saying on blogs, and rapidly reacting to the issue Alex raised.

My guess is that Planet Ocean have had that “please come back” autoresponder for many, many years, and when it was first set up one-click unsubscribe links were probably a thing of the future. It’s good to see that they’re updating the autoresponder to add that feature.

It’s also interesting to note how the power of the blogosphere can influence companies to take action.

What are bloggers saying about you and your company? Are you monitoring blogs? It looks like Planet Ocean are… and you should be.

One of the easiest ways to monitor the web is to set up Google alerts for your name, your company name and your product names. Google will send you a daily email containing any new references to your search terms… and it’s a free service.

I’ve got a treat for you today… something that costs nothing, but is very valuable… The Impact Factor.

It’s from Ken McArthur, one of the “unsung heroes” of Internet marketing. Ken is someone I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for many years. Until now he’s quietly gone about his business of helping as many people as possible.

Now he’s trying to reach more people through a book launch and he really wants to make it a big event… so he’s pulling out all the stops and giving you a huge amount of valuable content just for checking out his “Impact Factor” website…

Guys, this is a real “no cost - no brainer”!

(there’s already over 100+ hours of audio tips for you to listen to, and Ken’s going to be adding more over time)

[update: the webpage has changed to the sales letter for Ken’s ebook, from the simple signup page I was promoting. I think you can just fill in the form at the bottom of the page to get the free goodies I mentioned]

Frank Kern and Mike Koenigs have put together a live training event in San Diego on July 19th and 20th teaching people how to markets ebooks with a backend continuity program.

What’s interesting is that they are asking for $997+ charity donations to the Just Like My Child organisation in order to attend their event.

Instead of paying Frank and Mike and them passing on the money, apparently you actually make your donation to the organisation to secure your place at their live training event.

On the “sales letter” it states, “Your credit card will be billed by “The Just Like My Child Foundation” www.JustLikeMyChild.org and you will receive a receipt from a registered 501c3 non-profit foundation to deduct 100% of your donation.”

Way to go, Frank and Mike. I hope it’s a storming success.

In response to seeing this in an email he received…

“If you get easily offended, STOP reading now and scroll down to the unsubscribe link at the bottom cause you are wasting space on my list reserved for someone who is serious.”

… Martin Avis commented…

“Okay, I will. Because you are wasting serious space in my inbox.”

You tell ‘em, Martin.

What amused me, beyond Martin’s comment, was how the marketer sending the email could possibly consider that any subscriber was “wasting space on my list”. Huh? How does that work? Some of the biggest super affiliates have lists that are hundreds of thousands of email addresses. The last time I checked, there wasn’t a fee based on list size… or if there is, it’s much diminished from the early days of Internet marketing when we seemed to pay more for every 1,000 email addresses.

Oh well, I guess the marketer couldn’t be bothered to use “because” instead of “cause”, was arrogant and offensive to their own list and so probably isn’t likely to see the incongruency in accusing people of “wasting” space on their list.

I think, when this “get off my list if you don’t like it” tactic is used, it’s so that the marketer can subsequently pursue a more aggressive marketing line and consider it to be alright. Presumably, “if the people receiving the emails had wanted to unsubscribe, they already would have” justifies the increased marketing aggression to people who remain on the list and are therefore “serious” about taking action. I don’t agree with it, I’m just trying to understand it. It sounds like psychological blackmail to me.

What do you think?

I’ve been checking out some fellow Internet marketers… people who seem to have well established blogs… but can you believe what you see?

Surely some of these Internet marketers, whose blog posts seem to go back to 2004 or beyond didn’t really have blogs back then?

Heck, this blog only goes back to 2006… because that’s when I started it, despite the fact that I’ve been making money online since 1997.

How did these other Internet marketers manage to start a blog and then back-date it by a couple of years?

From what I can tell, they made posts with historical dates, using their old email promotions as content for the blog posts.

But why?

Well, I guess it makes use of their old content, which may get a click or two when it’s indexed by the search engines… but my guess is that they want to be seen to have a long track-record online. It’s obvious from my previous post that people with a long track record of marketing online successfully are more respected than people who just arrive online and start shouting how wonderful they are.

So… Padding Your Blog With Backdated Content… respectable, or a cheap trick?

What do you think?

What’s next? Twitter tweets from 2001? Facebook pages from 1999? Squidoo Lenses from 1994?

Last night I was thinking about the “old time Internet marketers”… the ones who were lucky enough to enter the Internet marketing field about a decade ago or longer and whose teachings have stood the test of time.

In my opinion people who are new to the field of Internet marketing would do well to learn from these people (at least, the ones who are still marketing) instead of learning from brand new marketers who shout louder and louder promises and spin more and more hype. Like anything in life, reputation has to be earned.

So, here are the “old timers” who have been most influential on my Internet marketing career. My apologies to those marketers who don’t appear on the list… blame my “old timer’s memory”.

(there are no affiliate links in this list which is in alphabetical order)

Allan Gardyne. Allan has run his free Associate Programs newsletter since 1998 and maintains an incredibly impressive quality level. The domain name comes from back when affiliate programs were called “associate programs” because that’s what Amazon called theirs when they started way back in the ancient days. At Associateprograms.com you can read the back issues of Allan’s newsletter and join in the active discussion forum. [edit: Allan is also responsible for the excellent SpeedPPC time-saving tool, for anyone interested in Pay Per Click marketing.]

Corey Rudl. Corey was an Internet marketing pioneer and is still hugely missed. Corey blazed the trail all Internet marketers followed. The Internet Marketing Center is now run by Derek Gehl.

Declan Dunn. (what was his early domain name? I don’t remember it, but I do remember offering to buy it from Declan [update: it was activemarketplace.com]. Declan was one of the earliest affiliate marketers and published “The Complete Insiders Guide to Associate and Affiliate Programs” in 1998. He moved on to consultancy with companies such as American Express I believe.

Jim Daniels. Jim started out in 1996 with $300 and a 386 computer. He has since helped thousands of people start their own online businesses through his BizWeb Gazette and his “Make A Living Online” website/product. I think there are hundreds of thousands of subscribers to his BizWeb Gazette newsletter!

John Audette. John started and moderated the I-Sales digest back in 1997, one of the earliest and best discussion lists for Internet marketers.

Jonathan Mizel. Jonathan started the Online Marketing Letter back in 1993. It’s the longest running Internet marketing newsletter. Jonathan also hosted one of the first Internet marketing conferences at Boulder, Colorado, before moving to Maui.

Mark Joyner. Mark has created some of the most viral websites ever, such as StartBlaze and ExitBlaze. One of his earliest ebooks, Search Engine Tactics, was released in 1995… before ebooks were called ebooks…

Marlon Sanders. Marlon’s a massively influential marketer whose Amazing Formula was probably owned by almost every early marketer, including myself. Still producing innovative material such as his new Kindle report.

Michael Campbell. Michael recalls queueing for a copy of the Netscape browser when it was launched… back in 1994. He pioneered affiliate marketing making $750,000 in sales of cell phone accessories purely through search engine ranking techniques which he described in “Nothing But Net”, and then explained advanced strategies in “Clickin It Rich” and “Revenge of the Mininet”. Michael quickly adopts new technologies and is now augmenting his newsletter with podcasts, a blog, twitter and ustream.

Stephen Mahaney. Stephen’s team has been on the cutting edge of search engine updates and changes since 1997. They offer a membership site “Search Engine News” and ebook, “The UnFair Advantage Book on Winning The Search Engine Wars”.

… and an extra one…

Terry Dean. Terry had one of the earliest membership sites for people wanting to market online called NetBreakthroughs. He sold that site in 2004 to Kirt Christensen and (I believe) retired to pursue religious work, but is now back at terrydean.org.

Ok, so that’s my list… who have I forgotten? Who hugely influenced you before the “Y2K bug” melted the Internet?

Anyone else remember that? lol.