Scheduled for launch in May(see the news update post) here’s the first sneak peek at the special case for Traffic Secrets 2.0.

The first version of this best-selling course shocked the Internet Marketing industry when it was released on August 17, 2004 and sold over $1,000,000 worth in less than 18 hours. It became known in the industry as the first “Million Dollar Day” by an infoproduct entrepreneur and the course went on to become one of the most popular “must have” training courses ever published.

After listening to what our customers really wanted, we designed a custom case for this course that will hold all of the components. No more ‘loose’ disc cases that can get lost. No more packaging you open with ’stuff’ that just flies everywhere. Now it can all stay in one nice container that can go on a bookshelf for easy reference.

The 2.0 version of the course is ALL NEW and contains 12 special interactive CD-Roms (our brand new learning platform; super cool stuff!) that will set a new standard for the industry and how people consume infoproducts. This new interactive learning platform was designed to help our customers consume the information faster so they can immediately put strategies into action and start seeing results right away.

The course also includes a Training Manual, Workbook, Blueprints, and some other goodies I can’t reveal just yet.

Stay tuned to the blog for more info.

By now you’ve probably heard of “transparency” and how it relates to a company’s marketing.  It can mean many things — from the open disclosure of certain policies to a public explanation of ‘why’ a company is taking a certain approach or utilizing a certain strategy.

But one area of transparency, more than any other, is what I believe is the future of all business.  It’s when a company provides a “behind the scenes” look at its culture, work environment, special events, lives of its employees and more.  It’s all about doing things that can build a lifetime BOND.

Let’s face it, we’re bombarded with marketing today.  It’s coming at us from all directions.  And TRUST is a major issue.  How can we trust one company over another?  Transparency is going to help solve this problem - at least for the companies that embrace it.

Gone are the days of marketing behind impersonal advertisements, generic campaigns, or fancy product design.  ”Customer” is a dead label.  The future of business is all about creating FANS and also FRIENDS.

As the commercial Web took off in the mid-1990s, single man or woman operations had a major advantage over ‘big’ companies — they had an easier time building relationships with their prospects and customers.  They wrote email newsletters and shared stories about their personal lives.  They shared photos of their cats.  They talked about lessons they learned from their kids.

And their businesses THRIVED because of this “better business relationship.”  People were drawn to it.  And it’s no surprise.  Would you rather give your hard-earned money to some cold, distant corporation or to someone that at least appeared to care about you enough that they took the time to tell you stories and share things with you?

As “social media” and the Internet continues to evolve, it’s getting easier and easier to share photos, videos, and stories with others.  I think it’s only a matter of time before businesses (and individuals) are going to be in deep trouble if they aren’t sharing ‘more’ like their competitors.

One way for YOU to practically guarantee that you make more money in your business is to improve the relationship with your site visitors/blog readers.  And being more transparent about your business and your own life is one way to do it.

You may have some PRIVACY concerns and it’s definitely something to think about before you start sharing anything.  I’ve been pretty much a paranoid freak during the past 10+ years of marketing online.  I rarely posted any photos of myself or anything to do with “my life” because I had privacy concerns.

But I’m slowly but surely getting over it.  I know that in order for my business to thrive I’m going to have to become more transparent.  Business today practically demands it.  (Or will very soon.)

Here’s a quick example of a young company that’s got this transparency thing down…  IZEA.  They post videos of company parties, have employee “confessionals” and tons of other ‘fun’ stuff that I’m sure their customers love to see.  Do you think this is helping build the relationship with their customers?

You better believe it.

Ted Murphy, IZEA’s Founder & CEO, is a friend of mine and he’s done an amazing job creating his company’s culture.  Check out the IZEA Blog to see some of the crazy stuff they are doing.

Now not all companies are going to go to such extremes as IZEA but they better start doing ’some’ of this transparency stuff (i.e. sharing) or they will be in trouble.  And you definitely need to consider doing more of this in your own business.

Personality Is Becoming More And More Of A Marketing Weapon In A World Of Over-Hyped, Outdated, Boring Strategy.

In my own effort to be more transparent, I’m going start sharing more “behind the scenes” stuff about my personal life and the life of my business.

If you haven’t already done so, make sure to follow me on Twitter.

I’m also starting to post more photos on my Flickr photostream.

Here are just a few of the photos I’ve just added… (you can click them to see larger versions).

YouTube has just added some new features and a new layout.

Look at the “Statistics & Info” tab under a video.

This tab will show you any ‘awards’ that video has won but more importantly will show you REFERRING SITES and how many clicks those incoming links have sent to the video.

* It currently appears to only show the top 5 referring sites.

EDIT: These stats have been available before but many marketers chose to ‘hide’ them. (Read on.)

This is extremely VALUABLE marketing information.

Now you can look at any of your competitor’s videos and see ‘where’ most of their traffic is coming from!

This is a great way to find new JV partners or content publishers in your market that would be ideal to send traffic to YOUR videos.

Users can apparently hide this information but YouTube displays it by default with the new layout. (For now.)

So GO NOW and do some valuable research into your competitors’ videos before they HIDE this referral data.

UPDATE: I meant to emphasize that it looks like ALL of these stats have been turned on by DEFAULT. A lot of this info was already there although the layout has changed. In the past this information did not appear to be turned on all videos by default — not sure if this is an error by YouTube that will be corrected soon.

From the time I sent out the first email to my newsletter list (inviting them to add me as a “Friend” on Facebook) it only took about 5 1/2 days to go from zero to hit the max friend limit of 5,000 friends. I’m not sure if that has ever happened before in the history of Facebook for one person’s account.

Keep in mind that I personally had to go and approve every request by hand — and I, personally, did all of them myself.

I plan on doing a lot of teaching from within Facebook itself (as it’s an incredibly valuable marketing tool) but as of now I can no longer add any new friends.

BUT…

I was able to set up a “Fan Page” within Facebook that is separate from my main profile. This Fan Page can have an UNLIMITED number of people connected to it. (Or so I’m told.) While the Fan Page does not have ALL the same functionality as being linked as a ‘friend’ to my main profile, it will have about 90% of it. I am going to be listing all my teachings and any videos I’m going to release via Facebook also on this Fan Page.

I have also set up a “Free Advertising” section within this Fan Page so anyone can go and promote their site; as well as they follow the rules I have listed.

If you missed out on becoming one of my 5,000 “friends” on Facebook, or even if you are one of the 5K, visit this page and click the “Become a Fan” link in the upper right area:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/John-Reese/12918602084

Then look under the NOTES section for the note that says, “Click Here To Promote Your Products & Services!”

* I’m going to encourage all of my 5K “friends” to also join this Fan Page area, and I hope to continue the “momentum” I created by making that Fan Page area HUGE. This will have tremendous networking benefits for everyone involved. So please go and join that page.

More news soon!

Yes, that’s a funny title. It just so happens to belong to a great post made by Jack Humphrey.

By the way, Jack has a KILLER blog with non-stop quality posts. I highly recommend you read it on a regular basis.

Jack is a smart cookie and has been paying close attention to what I’m up to on Facebook this week. I’m really doing my best to “shake things up.”

My Facebook account is now over 3,200 friends and growing fast. And it’s only been 3 days since I start my ’secret’ campaign. (No, I’m not revealing my evil plans just yet!)

If you haven’t yet added me as a friend on Facebook you better hurry… once I hit their 5,000 friend limit I won’t be able to add anymore people.

Once you log into Facebook you can find my profile here: http://profile.to/johnreese

See you on Facebook.