Neil Shearing’s Internet Marketing Strategies

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.