The following is a reprint (by permission) of an e-mail from one of the smartest business people I know, Ken McCarthy.  Ken has a wealth of life and business experience, and teaches online marketing in a Michael Jordan kinda way — learn the fundamentals and practice, practice, practice.  Thousands of folks have gladly paid thousands for his advice and benefitted tremendously from it.  You can get it totally free, absolutely no strings attached…  Please read what he has to say about one of the most important topics affecting us all right now — Money.  There is a link at the bottom and I won’t make a dime if you choose to click that link — think of it as a public service.

Money…

People talk about it, worry about it, dream
about it.

Today there are not not only TV shows devoted to it
but also whole TV channels.

It’s a topic of endless interest – and it generates
a lot of emotion.

Like most people, I’ve been fascinated by the
subject of money too.

I’ve also had some very interesting experiences
with it:

* I worked on Wall Street in the late 1980s and
still have lot of friends who are part of that
scene.

* I’ve met and talked with four billionaires
(Jim Clark, Marc Andreessen, James Barksdale
and Scott McNealy)

* I’ve been part of the Internet revolution since
before Day One and have seen many fortunes
made and lost.

=== Here’s a secret about me…

For every book I own about marketing (and I
have hundreds of them), I have a book about
money.

I’ve never made a business of giving market advice,
but occasionally I have shared insights -
publicly and in writing.

Like in 1994, when I recommended business
owners and investors take the Internet seriously

Like in 1998, when I recommended that investors
STOP taking the Internet so seriously.

Like in 2002, when I said the Internet was going
to come back stronger than ever after the
dot com crash.

Every time, I was going against the flow in a
big way.

If I were an investment advisor, these three calls alone
would have been enough to put me in the Investor’s Hall
of Fame.

=== But that’s just the tip of the iceberg

I’ve also issued occasional private market advisories to
my System Club members.

Like in 2005 when I advised all System Club members
to rethink what their business – and life – would be
like if there were to be a sudden and drastic credit
crunch – which I called “inevitable.”

Like in the spring of 2007, when I wrote that
there was something profoundly wrong with the
real estate market and the party looked like it
was over.

Like in August of 2008 when I flashed a red alert
to get out of the stock market and make sure
you don’t have more than the FDIC limit
in any one bank account.

“Crazy man” advice at the time it was given…

But I know several people for whom the 2008 stock
warning alone saved six figures of hard earned life savings.

How did I know these things (or at least have a strong
enough suspicion that I was willing to put it out there?

Hey, I’m going to be 50 years old this year and
I’ve been paying attention to the financial markets
like a hawk since I was 14.

If I hadn’t learned something by now I’d be
in trouble.

Also, actually working on Wall Street and having
friends there woke me up to the reality of the
place…it’s a glorified casino and everything the media
says about it needs to be taken with several tons
of salt.

=== So what does this have to do with you?

Almost every day I come across someone
who has been massacred by bad money advice…

It both breaks me heart and p*sses me off.

Either they’ve been given bad Internet marketing
advice, or they’ve been given bad investment advice
or they’ve just never been given good advice about
money – how to make it and how to KEEP it and
grow it. (Notice the one word I put in caps.)

Because I can’t possibly fully explain
one-on-one how money and wealth building works
to everyone who’s asked me, I decided to sit
down and write down everything I know about it.

Now that the writing is done, I realize how valuable
what I’ve produced is.

After all, what would unambiguous advice to get out of stocks
in August of 2008 have been worth to some people?

I know… In one case $127,000. In another person’s
case $384,000. And in both cases, their “broke”-ers
fought them tooth and nail about going to cash.

=== So what should I charge for this thing?

A few hundred? A few thousand? Should I put on
one of those $10,000 weekend deals for “insiders”
only?

Here’s my plan…a very reasonable $195…
UNLESS, you come and get it on Independence Day.

On July 4th – and that day only – it will be
absolutely free.

No strings attached. No back end. No up sell.
No baloney.

Then, on July 5th, it goes back to $195.00 which
frankly is a world class bargain.

=== Why am I doing this?

Because I’m tired of seeing good people getting
misled and blown up by the financial industry.

Whenever I turn on the financial news on TV
I just have to shake my head and sigh.

Never has so much nonsense been spouted to
so many about something that’s so important.

Why am I offering this on the 4th of July, Independence Day?

To make this important point…

The whole reason to be involved in the business of making
money is to attain financial independence.

Period.

You can do it fast. You can do it slow. You can fail to do it.

It’s up to you – but it really helps if you know the right way to
go about it.

There are actually five things you need to do to become
financially independent – just five. But you need to do
all five to make it work.

That’s it – and I guarantee you can buy every money-making
course out there and less than 1 out of 1,000 will never lay
it out for you as clearly as I do.

It’s surprisingly simple (not easy, but simple)…if you just know
how – and it doesn’t matter what the economy is doing.

I’m calling my report the Independence Day Blueprint.

If you want it, go here:

http://www.thesystemseminar.com/july4/

See you on Independence Day!

Ken

Invest some time in your future and click the link.  Again, I have no affiliation other than knowing Ken and knowing the quality of the information he produces.  I know it will make a difference in your life.  And it’s totally free.

Technorati Tags: 1980s, Billionaires, Business Experience, Business Fundamentals, Business Owners, Dot Com Crash, E Mail, Endless Interest, Financial Independence, Fortunes, Internet Revolution, Investment Advisor, James Barksdale, Jim Clark, Ken Mccarthy, Marc Andreessen, Market Advice, Michael Jordan, Online Marketing, Scott Mcnealy, Service Money, The System Club, Thr, Tv Channels

One of the simplest and most overlooked aspects of online marketing is that it’s not complicated. Or more to the point, there are a lot of “experts” who try to make it complicated. Aside from whatever motivation they might have to do that <COUGH: SELL THEIR STUFF>, online profits happen as the results of one simple equation –

Traffic + Conversion = Sales

– performed over & over & over again

There are MANY ways to get traffic (visitors) to your site and get them to take some action (convert) which will either result in more leads or (less frequently) result directly in more sales to your business.

So here’s the other simple rule — you only need to master 1 or 2 traffic methods and 1 or 2 conversion methods, and you will make money. You don’t need to master the entire kitchen to make a grilled cheese sandwich, and you don’t need to know EVERYTHING about internet marketing in order to add revenue to your business.

With that in mind, there are a few basic traffic techniques I’ve implemented in some of my sites and client sites that have universally and consistently WORKED. Here are a few of those methods — but remember, you only need to pick one or two:

Traffic Generation

1) Twitter is a highly effective means of targeting your niche and developing the conversation with your customers and prospects. There really is nothing like it. However, most businesses don’t know how to use it effectively. They spam with “sales tweets” — “Look at the cool new thing I’m selling.” The 80/20 rule is highly effective — 80% of your tweets should be about something interesting, funny or otherwise engaging… a question of the day (“What’s for lunch?”)… anything to get people talking, laughing, thinking… Also, keep it consistent and be generous with re-tweets. A few tweets a day go a long way toward establishing a rabid list of followers. The wrong thing to do is to Tweet like a madman for a day or two and then disappear for a month. Or worse, don’t reply when someone direct messages you or @messages you. That’s like ignoring someone at a dinner party when they ask you to pass the gravy. You WON’T get any dessert.

2) Video marketing. This is still a very fast way to rank your site and get lots of inbound traffic. Keep your videos consistent — don’t show up one day in a baseball cap and dark lighting, talking about the rain, and another day bouncing in a jungle gym screaming about business leads. Consistent message, consistent tone, consistent look & feel. Also, be sure to put a call to action in your video’s description, as well as the full URL of your website’s landing page, and use appropriate keywords.

3) Article marketing. This is an evergreen method for outstanding traffic generation, with one HUGE caveat — mix it up! Putting the same article on 400 article directories will get you nowhere fast. You will get a bump in traffic from all the inbound links until Google figures out they’re all the same article and basically count it as one link. There are content spinners out there that alter the content of your articles automatically, but you have to be very careful here as well. Most content spinners change a word or two to replace it with a synonym, or they mash up the article randomly to the output is basically junk that cannot be read. It has to pass human review. So if you’re looking for a quality content spinner, ideally you want to be able to change the entire sentence, do that with many sentences in the article, and then have it spin those into hundreds of different articles. That’s the professional way to do it. At the bottom of your article, have a call to action in the information field; a blurb about you (the author) and a link to a free guide the reader can pick up at your website.

Conversion

1) Keep it simple. The landing page has to do ONE thing — get people to ACT. For this reason, it’s been called a SINGLE ACTION PAGE. Pear it down to the bare essence of what you need the visitor to do. Consider placing a video on the page with a very simple message, “Hey thanks for stopping by for my free whizbang. Just type in your first name and e-mail address and I will rush it right over to you. In just a moment after you send your information, you’ll get an e-mail with a confirmation link. Click that link and I will instantly send your free whizbang.”

2) Direct, direct, direct. Notice the video script in #1 above — see how we instructed the user on exactly what they need to do? And then we told them what to expect next, and what they would then need to do. And we closed with a reminder of the benefit — the free whizbang.

If you have trademarked the term “whizbang,” then I apologize in advance.

3) Test, test, test. ALWAYS have two versions of your landing page operating at one time. You can optimize your landing page using freely available Google tools in the Web Optimizer toolbox. You really can’t go on “gut” here — the data will be you every single time. Even on PPC ads, we have literally seen the addition of a question mark in the ad increase conversion by 16.8% So test, test, test.

Conclusion

These methods work on any business in any industry. Here is some social proof –

• Local landscape designer increased her traffic by 7,342% (yes seven thousand percent)
• Local artist went from three visitors a day to an average of 41 visitors a day
• International digital publisher had zero e-commerce and started converting 16% of all traffic to revenue within 72 hours of implementing one traffic strategy and one conversion strategy
• Changing a landing page to a simple design on an e-book site turned conversion from an anemic two sales per week to eight sales a day — on the same traffic.

I hope this helps your business. The average business fails to do what it takes to drive traffic or achieve conversions to their website. While they exercise 20-30 traffic methods on average, they don’t do a single one effectively.

I have written a definitive guide listing 750 traffic generation methods that’s available here. Choose one or two and do them effectively.

Technorati Tags: Amp, Article Marketing, Conversion, Conversion Methods, Cough, E-Commerce, Followers, Google, Google Web Optimizer, Grilled Cheese Sandwich, internet marketing, Landing Page, Lead Generation Methods, Lt, Lunch, Madman, Money, Motivation, Niche, Online Marketing, Online Marketing Strategies, Online Sales, opt in page, Pay Per Click Campaign Management, PPC, Profits, Prospects, Question Of The Day, Single Action Page, social proof, Squeeze Page, Traffic, Traffic Generation, Traffic Visitors, Twitter, Video Marketing

Technorati Tags: broadcast media, Broadcast Television, Conversions, Customer One, direct marketing, internet marketing, marketing campaign, Marketing Content, Marketing One To One, one to one marketing, Online Marketing, Page Thanks, Radio Internet, SEO, SEO content, Suggestion Box, Thanks For Your Support, Vast Number, web marketing

When one thinks in terms of marketing ANYTHING, you consider what your product does and who might it serve.  In the online world, this is absolutely crucial.  Determining your “niche” is the single most important decision you will make.  It’s so important that it’s page one on Google for a business that gets it right, and crash & burn for the business that gets it wrong.

I have seen clients try to create one website — usually because they are on a budget — and intend for that one website to be an umbrella for anyone who might stop by.  The marketing strategy here seems to be, “shove ‘em under the umbrella.”  You really can’t market to “anyone.”  As customers, do any of us want to be considered “anyone”?  Perhaps it’s telling that even umbrellas are not needed all the time; you would find an easier time to sell someone an umbrella when it’s raining than on a sunny day.  A cautionary note — any time you market online to “anyone,” you will surely fail, unless you have the budget of Google… in which case you would be, um, GOOGLE.

Sometimes, even things that appear related are vastly unrelated in Online Eyes…  For example, let’s say you’re an electrician and you want to advertise your electrical service.  But you also want to post tips on do-it-yourself electrical repair.  And sell an e-book about electrical home DIY projects.  And do some e-commerce on some parts you have in the warehouse that are gathering dust, but you figure SOMEONE would probably want to buy them…  And so on.  Can you see how terribly confusing this site is, not to mention it will probably sabotage and even cannibalize this company’s offline efforts…? 

This company would be better served to have several websites.  It’s possible that a few of their customers from each site would be interested in their other “products,” but not likely.  They would be better served to establish a separate customer base in each “niche.”  The added benefit of this strategy is that it creates multiple (healthy) income streams for a business that previously only had one.  

If the business could not afford to do that, then they might consider prioritizizing the different project ideas on the basis of which could generate cashflow most rapidly, and add in new sites as their investment pays off. 

These are one of the many strategies we advise our clients on, so their marketing expenses not only make sense, but make MONEY.  We believe websites should look good and earn revenue, not exist as an expense item on your balance sheet.

Technorati Tags: Blogs, E-Commerce, geomarketing, niche marketing, offline marketing, online market segmentation, Online Marketing, service based business marketing, Video Marketing, Web 2.0, Web Design

Lee Iacocca, the business leader who rescued Chrysler Corporation from extinction, has a new book, “Where Have All the Leaders Gone?”   It’s a fascinating insight into the man, and not only identifies our current crisis (and set of crises) but calls for leadership to get our world through this tumultuous period and back on the road to real recovery.  

Here is an excerpt from the book, or you can buy it at a discount here – Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Lee Iacocca Says:

‘Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder! We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, ‘Stay the course.’

Stay the course? You’ve got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned, ‘Titanic’. I’ll give you a sound bite: ‘Throw all the bums out!’

You might think I’m getting senile, that I’ve gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore.

The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in  Iraq , the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do And the press is waving ‘pom-poms’ instead of asking hard questions. That’s not the promise of the ‘America’ my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I’ve had enough. How about you?

I’ll go a step further. You can’t call yourself a patriot if you’re not outraged. This is a fight I’m ready and willing to have. The Biggest ‘C’ is Crisis! (Iacocca elaborates on nine C’s of leadership, with crisis being the first.)

Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It’s easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else’s kids off to war when you’ve never seen a battlefield yourself. It’s another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a  strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. A hell of a mess, so here’s where we stand.

We’re immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving.

We’re running the biggest deficit in the history of the country.

We’re losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs.

Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble.

Our borders are like sieves.

The middle class is being squeezed every which way.

These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you’ve got to ask: ‘Where have all the leaders gone?’ Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the  point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo?

We’ve spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.

Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm.

Everyone’s hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn’t happen again. Now, that’s just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it Make a plan. Figure out what you’re going to do the next time.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when ‘The Big Three’ referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to do about it?

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debit, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn’t elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bonehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don’t you guys show some spine for a change? 

Had Enough? Hey, I’m not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here.  I’m trying to light a fire. I’m speaking out because I have hope – I believe in America. In my lifetime, I’ve had the privilege of living through some of  America ‘s greatest moments. I’ve also experienced some of our worst crises: The ‘Great Depression,’ ‘World War  II,’ the ‘Korean War,’ the ‘Kennedy Assassination,’ the ‘Vietnam War,’ the 1970′s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11.

If I’ve learned one thing, it’s this: ‘You don’t get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it’s building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play That’s the challenge I’m raising in this book. It’s a “Call to Action” for people who, like me, believe in America’. It’s not too late, but it’s getting pretty close. So let’s shake off the crap and go to work. Let’s tell ‘em all we’ve had ‘enough.’

Technorati Tags: business leadership, depression, economic crisis, economic rebound, Lee Iacocca, Marketing, offline marketing, Online Marketing, Recession

The announcement today that over a half million jobs were lost in the month of November is startling news, especially considering that since the start of the year 1.8 million Americans have lost their jobs.  The country has its highest unemployment rate since October 1993.  Unemployment has risen by .2 percent to 6.7 percent.  What this means for a business online?  If you don’t already have a comprehensive marketing campaign, then you need to get one NOW.

For most businesses, what you do not want is paid advertising.  Adwords are effective under extremely narrow circumstances.  Banner ads stopped working around the turn of the century.  Link exchanges are… pardon me while I stop laughing…

There are NUMEROUS ways you can market a business online using highly effective, proven strategies.  Kinetics Web Pro is expert at getting your site to the top of the search engines, and that’s a big part of any website’s monetary success.  We’re also expert at SEO content, a specific form of content designed to do well in the search engines AND add something of value to your site; if you’re still pumping out random words or repeating key phrases dozens of times on your pages, not only will your readers shun you, but Google will ban you.  Thank goodness for Google — don’t you just hate those sites that try those goofy “spammy” tactics?

Sometimes it’s in the worst of times that we find out what we’re made of, and that can be a very good thing.  Unfortunately, sometimes in the worst of times there are people who are out to prey on our weaknesses and sell us all types of things that really don’t serve our interests, but exploit our fears.

Kinetics Web Pro uses proven strategies that are time-tested and evergreen; they will work six months or two years from now, and keep on working.

If you pay attention to the news (and you should), you’re probably freaked out right about now.  Give yourself a minute to freak out, and then remember that the job of the news is to A) scare us (because it’s good for their ratings), and then inform us just enough to B) See A.

There IS a way out.  Sit down with us for five minutes and you’ll see we’re the real deal.  We’re here to help.  We’ll create an online investment that will help you grow your offline business.  And if you already have a website that has never made you money, we understand.  We hear that a lot.  It’s a lot better feeling knowing your little website is churning out hundreds or thousands of dollars a month in profit with very little effort on your part.  There will be a lot of people talking about unemployment today.  But let’s talk about you making some money — isn’t that a more pleasant conversation?  It’s certainly more productive.

Technorati Tags: Digital Marketing, E-Commerce, Economy, Marketing, Mobile Content, New Media, Online Marketing, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Unemployment, Video Marketing, YouTube