UPDATE: Here it is… http://www.trafficsecrets.com/v3.html

In a few more hours we’ll be releasing the 3rd Traffic Secrets 2.0 preview series video.

Standby.

Ahhhh the Internet. What a crazy 24 hours it has been.

If you followed yesterday’s saga then you know exactly what I’m talking about. Attacks. Insults. Accusations. Assumptions. Reactions. Disrespect. Punches. Kicks. Slaps. And more.

Yes, just another day on the Internets.

Well, I’m about to say something that will probably come as a huge SHOCKER to everyone, especially those that so passionately defended me; which I sincerely appreciated it…

I WAS WRONG.

Looking at the situation again after the dust has settled, I am man enough to realize that I was wrong in some of the things that I wrote yesterday and how I ‘positioned’ those that I wrote about.

I was a hypocrite in the process. As many of you know, one of the primary things I teach is not to get caught up in NEGATIVITY in your marketing. Don’t spend time bashing your competitors or others in your industry.

Because in almost every case no good will come from it.

Your sole focus should be on providing great value to your prospects and to your customers. In the great free content you giveaway, as well as anything you ever sell to someone. If you stay focused on the positive, and truly work hard to deliver great value to your market, everything else will take care of itself.

And if it doesn’t for some reason, there’s nothing you can do about it because you simply did your best.

I broke this ‘rule’ yesterday.

I read some blog posts that mentioned me by name and I became defensive because of how I felt I was being positioned. So I got all fired up and had a knee-jerk reaction and made my post yesterday. And while I truly had been wanting to express those thoughts on anti-marketing attitudes online for a long time, I realize now that the way I went about it was all wrong — even if I truly did feel I was ‘right’ in defending myself based on the situation.

Since I wrote yesterday’s post defending myself and expressing my thoughts, Duncan Riley and Mark Hopkins have both responded with new posts.

As you can see by their posts, the negative ‘cycle’ just continues to churn. As I post insults or imply things about them, they in turn find whatever ammunition they can find and return fire. It’s like a tennis match. The ball just keeps getting hit back and forth and ultimately isn’t going anywhere.

This is what happens when people’s reputations are being challenged. And it’s a completely natural reaction and one that ANYONE would have.

So now it’s my turn to defend myself against the latest remarks from them and hit the ball back over the net. But I’m not going to.

Instead, I’d rather look at this from a more constructive point of view and have the three of us go back to focusing on the more important things in our lives — because, frankly, this type of drama is a waste of time and we all know it.

Let’s start with Duncan Riley.

Duncan kind of started things off with his original post that quoted an email I had sent to my list and he referred to me as an “ebook salesman.”

I took offense to this ‘ebook’ remark because most people use that term in regards to someone selling a $19 ebook that promises to make people rich. And I get sick and tired of having the knuckleheads that DO sell that crap bringing the rest of our industry down.

So I fired back at Duncan and included him in my long rant. His name came along for the ride and I essentially painted him as anti-marketing. In hindsight, even though I was bothered by the ‘ebook’ comment, I probably should have recognized that he was subscribed to my email list for a reason.

After all, his original post was quoting an email he received from me.

Even, though, in Duncan’s latest response he ‘returns fire’ he also makes the point that he likes my copy and likes to keep up with other marketers. Hence the reason I now see that it was completely unfair of me to just lump him in with everything anti-marketing.

Which, ironically, is the very thing I was so passionate about when it came to defending myself — fighting back against the generalizations that all Internet marketers are evil and are only out to abuse the Internet and/or rip people off.

So my apologies to Duncan. In hindsight I should have contacted him personally, expressed my concern over how I thought he was ‘painting’ me out to be, and taking it from there.

As a side note, I’ve actually enjoyed reading Duncan’s writing for a very long time. Before he started his recent blog he was a long-time writer for TechCrunch where he wrote about up and coming startup companies — which is very far from anti-marketing or anti-capitalism.

Let’s move on to Mark Hopkins.

The situation with Mark is a lot different than Duncan. In fact, Mark really took the negativity to far greater lengths — even to a realm where so many things were unjustified and became personal attacks, in my opinion.

But if I truly take a step back and look at things from Mark’s perspective, I can get a different view than my own. While I certainly won’t defend some of what he said about me and how he went about it, I am reasonable enough to see what motivated him in the first place.

Mark has made it loud and clear that he despises MLM and other types of “referral marketing.” He feels that it preys on a large set of people in the process, and that any model like that is junk — and so even, though, BlogRush was free, it was based on a referral credit system and Mark just didn’t like the ’smell’ of it, so to speak.

As many of you know, I myself am not a fan of MLM and don’t suggest my students get involved with it. Because the focus of those things are more about ‘recruiting’ others than marketing an actual product of value; and that’s, ultimately, in my opinion, a doomed business model.

I think it’s better to build a business by creating ASSETS — such as your own products, your own customer list, your own content, your own marketing, etc. I believe the same money and time spent on building a business with your own assets will always yield far greater results than just ‘recruiting’ or promoting another company’s business. And, again, this is just my opinion.

As I explained to Mark in my ‘defense’ to his ‘pyramid scheme’ attacks on me, I setup BlogRush as multi-tiered referral system because I wanted to give the users the benefit of the ‘network effect’ when it grew virally. With all the other services online that have grown from viral marketing, the only core benefit is to the company that owns the service — the users get nothing out of doing the marketing for them. It was also done to help the small blogger without much traffic have a chance to leverage the network effect, otherwise a 1:1 exchange ratio doesn’t do them any good; because they don’t have much traffic to start with. But even aside from that, I see Mark’s point about the ‘overpromising’ marketing for it and have told him that we’re working to change it.

I never stated I was perfect and neither is my marketing.

And, of course, BlogRush is a free service and trying to call it a pyramid scheme is a reach — even, though, Mark makes a good point that it still takes people’s time and even uses up some space on their blogs. Fair enough. If Mark truly feels passionately about his dislike for anything related to that multi-level stuff then that’s certainly his right.

In Mark’s responses he has pointed out that I unfairly painted him as an “anti-marketing hippie” and that he has long been posting about things that are the opposite — of which I was unaware. So while I got mad at his personal remarks towards me (and how he tried to paint me as a huckster selling things to ‘my victims’) it was unfair of me to make the anti-marketing insinuations about him and do to him exactly what I was so against — the generalizations about Internet marketers.

So as tough as it may be for me… My apologies to Mark Hopkins.

Mark didn’t like the marketing of BlogRush and probably even some of my other marketing and that’s fine. It’s his right to feel the way he feels. If he wishes to continue to post negative remarks about me, my business, my products, my marketing, etc. so be it. There’s nothing I can do about it but do the best I can to deliver value to my customers — because at the end of the day, those are the only people I am accountable to.

And finally… TWITTER.

I think it goes without saying, but Duncan put a creative ‘focus’ on what wasn’t said in the email I sent out about Twitter that started this whole thing, and so I want to clarify it once and for all…

I didn’t say it word-for-word in my recent email encouraging people to use Twitter, but I’ll say it… DON’T BE A JACKASS AND SPAM OR ABUSE TWITTER.

As many of you know, I’ve already expressed how blatant promotions and pitching on social networks and other social media DOESN’T WORK. Social media is best used to give great content and great feedback in any conversation and eventually lead people to your blog or other areas where you’ve posted great supporting content. Then after someone has had a change to see what you offer in terms of free content does the process start towards being interested in doing business with you.

Perfect example: as many of you know I hit the Facebook limit of 5,000 friends in less than 5 days from the time I announced that I set-up an account to my list. For those of you that made it into that group of 5,000 you know that you’ve never seen me ‘pitch’ or heavily promote my own products, affiliate links, or anything else. I’ve only used it to interact with people and to syndicate or announce content I posted on my blog.

So don’t spam Twitter. Don’t direct message people links to your sites. Don’t overpost URLs to your stuff — otherwise people will “unfollow” you and then Twitter will serve no purpose if no one is ‘listening’ to anything you post.

If you make a new blog post, by all means share the URL with people following you. But always keep in mind… What’s In It For Them? They aren’t following you to get blasted with advertising. They’re following you because they believe what you have to share and say is interesting and has VALUE.

So the moral of the story from all this drama is this… far greater returns will happen for you and your business if you stay focused on the positive and on creating value and not getting caught up in negativity towards others — justified or not.

I am now moving on from this drama and going back to what I do best and what makes me happy. I suggest others do the same.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: I have written a follow-up post to this entire drama and it’s important that you read it. Thank you.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. This post is something I’ve wanted to express for a long time. So grab some popcorn and your beverage of choice. You’re in for a long one.

I was recently called out and attacked by Mark Hopkins over at the blog Mashable with his latest post, Is Twitter Vulnerable To Marketer Attack?

Mark apparently got his motivation to make such a post after reading blogger Duncan Riley’s recent post (also directed at me and showing a recent email I sent to my list) Pending Sign Of The Twitter Apocalypse: It’s Being Talked About By Internet Marketers.

I think it’s about time that someone actually set the record straight and addressed attacks like these against Internet marketers. On the Web, there has always been this massive divide between entrepreneurs using the Net for marketing purposes and those that aren’t.

If You’re Going To Call Someone Out And Attack Them At Least Get Your Facts Straight

Both Mark and Duncan referred to me as an “ebook salesman.”

That’s pretty interesting considering I’ve never sold an ebook since I’ve been marketing online for over 15 years.

So come on, guys, you’re supposed to be “journalists” so try doing your research first — especially if you’re going to publish something that more or less is a personal attack and tries to put someone down.

But even, though, they have this fact wrong about me their implication with this statement is something I’m going to come back to in a moment because it’s important.

Both Mark and Duncan attempt to imply that somehow I was encouraging marketers to abuse or spam Twitter in some way.

Here’s a tip: Why don’t you actually READ whatever email you’re trying to use as ‘evidence’ to make your case? You may want to reread that email and pay close attention to this sentence:

“Observe how others post and you’ll quickly learn the culture, etiquette, and uses for Twitter.”

I clearly state that there’s an ETIQUETTE to be used on Twitter. I am not in anyway encouraging people to abuse Twitter. It’s clearly stated directly in that email.

Even if that sentence wasn’t included, the implication is still that I am notorious for teaching people to be abusive with their marketing or something. Well, if you would have actually done your research on me (before attacking me) you’d know that I don’t support or teach any Internet abuse of any kind.

If you’re not going to take the time to actually do some research about me the very least you could have done is OBSERVE MY POSTS ON TWITTER.

As anyone can clearly see, what I’m encouraging people to do is actually the OPPOSITE of what Mark and Duncan are trying to imply.

But they’d know that if they had done their research.

Anyone can see the public history of my Twitter account at: http://twitter.com/johnreese

So why on earth did these ‘journalists’ not investigate it?

Ironically, Mashable has used their Twitter account for 100 TIMES MORE promotional effort than I have with mine. Hey pot, meet kettle.

Last Time I Checked Twitter Used A ‘Voluntary’ Messaging System

And completely aside from the points I just made, Twitter works by having users opt to follow other users — and they only see their tweets after they have voluntarily chosen to follow that person.

This makes it nearly impossible for someone to abuse the system for evil marketing purposes. Certainly some idiot will probably come up with a way to mass-send ‘direct’ messages to people (and Twitter will squash them) but Twitter’s design does not allow people to just blast anyone.

But what do I know. I’m not trying to make a living as an ‘expert’ blogger about Web 2.0 services.

Mark also took the ‘attack’ efforts against me quite a bit further than Duncan. Mark makes a statement that I’m a “Web 2.0 flopster.” The word “flopster” implying FAILURE.

Back to the lack of research factor…

If Mark had done his proper research on me he’d know that I’ve been one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the history of the Internet when it comes to creating online projects that CREATE PROFITS.

I was a pioneer of opt-in email marketing when I created one of the first auto-reply email services for businesses in 1994.

I am one of the few people in the world that can say they’ve created a web site from scratch and using a tiny marketing budget put that site into the Top 500 most trafficked web sites in the world.

And, oh yeah, I’ve done it with THREE different sites and I’m currently working on my 4th.

I’ve made millions of dollars in a variety of markets - from golf to hobby markets to B2B. I’ve been one of the top super affiliates in the world for companies like eBay, Chase, and other Fortune 500 companies. I’ve even generated over $1,000,000 in AdSense earnings without paying a penny for advertising or playing the “arbitrage” game — and I did it as a ’side’ project.

And as most online marketers know, in 2004 I released a training course and generated $1,000,000 in sales in the first 18 hours from the marketing campaign I put together — which ended up creating $1M in net profit within the first 7 days.

And I did it without risking a single penny on traditional advertising.

So Does That Make Me A ‘Flopster’?

Again, it’s all about the research.

HOWEVER… maybe Mark was simply referring to me as a failure in the “Web 2.0″ sense? Referring only to projects that are Web 2.0 services.

Fair enough. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Mark has consistently ‘hated’ on my BlogRush project. He has bashed it in the past and for whatever reason continues to seem all fired up about it.

He implies that the service was a dumb idea (without so many words) and that it failed, was overhyped, yadda yadda yadda.

Was BlogRush A Total Failure?

Even if it was… WHO CARES? I mean, if an entrepreneur comes up with a crazy idea at 4AM and has the guts to ‘go for it’ and it fails, does that make that person a FAILURE? After all, BlogRush is not even the core focus of the company I’m trying to build. But should someone that has a failed project like this just call it quits?

If I had taken that attitude about being an entrepreneur I would have been homeless a long time ago. It’s better to have the courage to try something and fail to not try at all. It’s amazing how many people bashed BlogRush yet most of them had never taken a major risk in their entire life.

No risk, no reward.

At least I had the guts to invest $400,000+ of my own money to give the idea a shot. Yes, my money. Not money some VC gave me.

The Internet would not be what it is today without the courage of entrepreneurs trying all kinds of crazy ideas.

As far as BlogRush is concerned, I’ll be the first to admit that it did not work out the way I had hoped it would. I hoped it would be a great service that would provide tremendous VALUE to a lot of people.

There were many factors that I didn’t expect when I created the service — such as the amount of abuse, that many people would hide the widget so low on their pages it wouldn’t get much click activity, etc. Then there’s also the issue that most bloggers don’t know how to write compelling titles — which has everything to do with the click-rate.

BlogRush also encountered some technical issues and other growing pains. Hey, it happens. But even with all of those problems and unforeseen issues, was BlogRush truly a failure?

Well, let’s look at some traffic analytics from Compete.com. In this chart let’s compare BlogRush’s traffic with that of Mashable the super popular blog where Mark is one of their writers:

Huh? That’s weird. For someone calling me a failure when it comes to my little “Web 2.0″ side project it can’t be that bad of a failure considering it gets more traffic than one of the most popular blogs in the world — that Mark happens to works for.

And here’s what’s really amazing… this chart is primarily showing unique visitor numbers based on the BlogRush site and NOT on the reach of the widget itself; because the widget is served on other sites.

Here’s A NEWSFLASH For Mark: The BlogRush widget has already been served over 540 MILLION TIMES.

I think most other entrepreneurs would LOVE to ‘fail’ that badly.

Mark also attacks some of the marketing copy that I used for BlogRush. He says it’s nothing but “hyperbole” and overhype, etc.

Hehe. I love the irony in the fact that Mark created his post based on a blog title that contains “Pending Sign Of The Twitter Apocalypse.” Great use of hyperbole, Duncan. I actually think that title rules!

Bloggers are notorious for their strong usage of hyperbole. Hey pot, meet kettle. Oh, you guys already met. Well, maybe you should get married.

I will be the first to admit that we overpromised and underdelivered (so far) with the promises of the copy for BlogRush. Anyone that knows me as a marketer knows that my entire career has been the OPPOSITE. I thrive on overdelivering value to my customers. And again, I admit that BlogRush didn’t work out like I thought it would - no one is more disappointed about that than I am.

Many BlogRush users ARE getting the free traffic benefits that were promoted. But most of these marketers have a solid grasp on writing really click-worthy titles; which makes all the difference.

But Mark is very passionate about dogging BlogRush, and that’s his right just like anyone else. So, Mark, I’m sorry that it didn’t live up to your expectations. We’ll gladly issue you a full and prompt refund.

Oh wait. Somehow I forgot BlogRush was a totally FREE service.

But There’s A Much More ‘Poisonous’ Message About Internet Marketers That Needs To Be Addressed

I’m so sick and tired of the anti-marketing attitudes of writers, pundits, and others on the Internet. It’s been going on since the Web started to take off in 1994/1995.

So many of these people make it out like all Internet-based marketers are only selling scammy, rip-off garbage. And while the Internet is certainly filled with all kinds of jackasses that spam and abuse every known online service and tool there is, not enough ‘credit’ is given to marketers (like me and most of my customers) that have great marketing and success online and do things the RIGHT way.

And not enough credit and attention is given to the fact that if it wasn’t for Internet marketers there would be no Internet or Web 2.0 as it is today.

MONETIZATION IS THE LIFEBLOOD OF THE INTERNET.

Without all of the affiliate marketers, affiliate merchants, small bloggers, advertising networks, marketers buying PPC traffic, and everything else that is a part of the “Internet Economy” 99% of what’s on the Web today would not exist.

So for Mark, and any others that seem to take this anti-marketing attitude, the next time you cash your paycheck you should take a moment to realize it wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the very marketers that create and sustain the economy of the Web.

Heck, just take a look at many of the ways that the Mashable blog is able to generate revenue — many of those programs and networks only exist because of marketer activity.

So if you kill all the Internet marketers, YOU KILL THE INTERNET.

As far as the spammy and abusive marketers go, it’s unfortunate and it pollutes the Web. Thankfully, the Internet has this great darwinism effect where those that don’t provide value end up getting destroyed. Junk and scammy crap will always end up in FAILURE. The ‘problem’ is that so many new junk peddlers take the place of the old ones.

One more point I want to make… Mark and Duncan’s efforts to call me an “ebook salesman” is being done in a negative light relating towards selling information to teach people how to make money in some way.

This is another common anti-marketing attitude that has existed online for ages. So many people are put off by marketing or promotion for anything to do with “making money.” Even, though, there are hundreds if not thousands of fantastic products on the subject that are truly helping people.

To realize this, I only have to take a look at the success stories created by my own teachings and what they’ve done for thousands of individuals and their families.

Are there tons of people peddling utter garbage and worthless “I’ll show you how to press a big red button and get rich” crap online? Unfortunately, YES.

But to stereotype anyone and everyone that publishes or provides marketing or business advice is PATHETIC. And that is primarily what happens when it comes to the anti-marketing attitude.

A Quiet Revolution Is Forming

These anti-marketing folks need to realize something…

The world is changing quickly. Economies are evolving. More and more people around the globe are realizing the benefits of having their own business online. The ‘marketing’ uses of the Internet are only going to GROW. And it’s actually going to make the Internet even STRONGER and more developed. As the needs to increase monetization are created it will spawn more innovation online.

The survival of Ideas, Sites, Services, and Companies on the Web are ALL dependent upon the activity from Internet marketers. I just wish more people would start to realize it.

* I would like to encourage my fellow Internet marketers to spread the word about this post. Thank you.

By now you probably know what “Target Marketing” is. It’s the process of designing your marketing for a specific group of people that would be most likely to buy what you sell.

As a simple example, if you sell products for men then you don’t need to include things that would appeal to women. But it’s much more complex than that.

The WORST thing you can do with your marketing is try to “be all things to all people.” This is what many refer to as the SHOTGUN APPROACH — you advertise and promote your business to anyone and everyone with the thinking that you’ll sell more by reaching more people.

Massive mistake.

If you truly focus your efforts (the way you communicate, your marketing style, the benefits that you stress, the stories you tell, the keywords you bid on, the places you choose to advertise, etc. etc.) towards your most ideal prospect then you stand to make the most money.

The closer you ’speak someone’s language’ (i.e. to a person’s feelings, problems, situations, etc.) the higher your conversions will be. i.e. the more sales you’ll make.

Because the problem with the shotgun approach is that your marketing becomes TOO BROAD and doesn’t ’speak’ directly to anyone (or group) in particular.

There are MANY marketers making the shotgun approach mistake. But there are probably MORE marketers (especially those marketing via the Internet) that ARE properly using target marketing as the foundation for their business BUT they are using some shotgun-type mistakes because of HOW they market online.

Here’s a great example…

How many companies online are trying to structure their web sites, content, and marketing to appeal to ALL INTERNET USERS within their target market? (Probably 95% of them.)

But here’s why this is, in my opinion, BAD MARKETING…

Internet users have different connection speeds… different screen resolutions… different computing power. Trying to structure your online marketing to appeal to ALL of these things is, ultimately, a way to LOSE MONEY.

Why?

Because in an effort to appeal to ‘everyone’ you sacrifice the ability to do a better job to a subset of those users. The best example is broadband users.

Income.com, for example, is going to be doing A TON of video. And guess what? We’re NOT going to have ‘alternate versions’ of our videos for dial-up and lower bandwidth users. In fact, we’re going in the opposite direction — our primary content is going to be aimed at users with fast connections. (Which is the majority now anyway.)

By creating our content and producing it to have the best experience for the majority of users that DO have fast connections we can do a BETTER JOB with our marketing. On the other hand, if we tried to create our content so it could still be experienced by everyone, we’d be ‘robbing’ our broadband users of a better experience — which can, ultimately, lead to higher conversions or higher revenue.

Some web designers are STILL designing web sites for 800×600 resolutions. This is silly. 75%+ have 1024 or greater screen resolutions now. Marketers can create better experiences by designing for the majority of their target audience — and in doing so make more money. Far more than the money they think they’d ‘lose’ by not catering to those users that are going to NOT get the ideal experience due to their computer and connection limitations.

In any business you’re going to have to do things that might “leave people out.” It’s just part of the process. If you want to maximize the amount of money you make in your business you’re going to HAVE TO make some tough decisions. Whether that’s not marketing to 18-24 year olds because most of your sales are coming from older folks, or with the dial-up vs. broadband example I’ve given you.

In fact, I would like to make you a CHALLENGE. I’d be willing to bet that RIGHT NOW in your business you could fine-tune your marketing to more directly target FEWER PEOPLE than you currently are. And in doing so, I’d almost guarantee that you make more money.

Always keep in mind… it’s not about the size of the audience, it’s about the rate at which people buy. Sometimes you have to focus on a smaller audience to produce more money.

Another great example of this is are companies that sell with premium prices. They are willing to ‘give up’ all of their potential buyers that won’t be able to afford (or justify) paying extremely high prices for their products. But they end up making more money because they tailor their marketing to do a better job of ’speaking’ to their target audience that WILL be most likely to buy their stuff.

So start thinking how you can at least start doing some test marketing to a smaller targeted audience. Set up a separate web site and special offers if you have to.

BONUS TIP: If you’re selling a bunch of products right now with an online store examine what products are selling the most. You’ll most likely find that 2 or 3 products account for 90% of your sales. If so, target your efforts to ONLY sell more of those 2-3 products and you’ll most likely make a lot more money than trying to appeal to people that ‘might’ want your 20-30 different products.

You know Super Billy and UltraProfit2K and BloggerBarbara and SEOKungFu?

*For the record, I am just making these up. This isn’t aimed at an actual person.

Well, their days of making money online are numbered.

In the past few years, things have really evolved with Internet Marketing and one of them has to do with ONLINE IDENTITIES. You used to be able to get away with using some anonymous “username” as you communicated with others online — even for business purposes.

But that has now changed.

The most successful marketers online are ones that will build brands and a loyal following with THEIR ACTUAL NAMES. And in some rare cases, a pen name.

As ‘Social Marketing’ is becoming more a part of our marketing lives, it’s now apparent more than ever that the Old Generation of anonymous usernames isn’t going to cut it.

With the growth of Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other forms of social marketing, users want to feel like they are communicating with ANOTHER PERSON, or even a new FRIEND. Well, giving a new friend you just met some bogus, made-up name isn’t going to exactly benefit that relationship. It would be a bit insulting, actually.

If you’re going to take the time and effort to ‘get involved’ online in discussions and other ‘conversations’ (for marketing purposes) you’re going to LOSE A LOT OF MONEY if you’re going to use something other than YOUR FULL NAME. Again, as an option you can use a pen name, but you must be consistent with it.

Want to know one of Facebook’s ’success’ secrets? The majority of their users are USING THEIR REAL NAMES.

Anonymous posting and conversations is so 1997.

Think about it… if you’re using Twitter, or even an online discussion forum, which posts and comments (especially those without a prior relationship) do you TRUST and VALUE the most?

Yep, it’s the ones from people using their full name.

Most people naturally equate anonymous communication as a COWARDLY ACT. And, no, I’m not saying that everyone that posts anonymously online is a coward. But that’s the PERCEPTION and FIRST IMPRESSION that most people have.

If you’re going to use the Internet for marketing purposes you better get over this ‘anonymous’ communication stuff quickly — because you’re only losing potential business and personal name brand recognition EVERY TIME YOU POST.

I’m a huge ‘trend watcher’ online, especially when it has to do with marketing. There’s a major EVOLUTION that’s happening now in relation to online identities and how people are effectively using the Internet to drive traffic and sales to their business…

The anonymous communicators are being IGNORED more and more. They just don’t get the attention and ‘interaction’ that they once did. It’s like most serious marketers are thinking, Well, how professional can they be if they aren’t even using a real name?

Another thing that adds to all of this is the TROLL FACTOR.

If you’ve been involved with online discussion forums then you are probably well aware of what a “troll” is. It’s a person that posts (anonymously, of course) some garbage to a thread you’re reading or even starts a junk thread just to “stir the pot” and piss people off.

Well, anonymous posters of any kind (forums, blog comments, social networks, etc.) are often being considered trolls now (even if they aren’t) because so many people are finally communicating online with their real names.

So the bottom line is this…

Do You Want To Make Maximum Money In Your Online Efforts?

Then start participating around the Internet using your FULL NAME. If you’re going to run a REAL BUSINESS that people spend money with then you should be using your FULL NAME.

For every successful marketer someone can name that uses some sort of anonymous moniker others can name 1,000 successful marketers using their full names — and this trend is just getting started.

PERSONAL BRANDS are becoming more valuable every day. Don’t wait to start building and growing the EQUITY in yours.

UPDATE:
Mellisa McJunkin made a great point in the ‘comments’ for this post. It’s very important that your ‘avatar’ or profile image also be a photo of yourself when possible. Funny pics of cats, cartoon characters, or Tom Cruise take away from your credibility — it is looked upon as “amateurish” and even untrustworthy as someone that might be hiding something.

SECOND UPDATE:
Peter raised some great points in the comment section about building a company brand instead of a personal brand that can never be sold, etc. Here is my response:

Peter,

-John Reese

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.

* I emailed this to my ezine list yesterday and wanted to reprint it on the blog.

#1 Problem Internet Marketers Have:

“What The Heck Do I Sell?”

I hear this time and time again…

People tell me they want to start making money online but they have no idea what to sell or how they will generate an income.

The answer to this question, for about 95% of those making money online, comes down to TWO product types:

1. CONTENT
2. MERCHANDISE

That’s pretty much it.

If someone is making money online they are probably making money from one of those areas or both.

And there are TWO ways to market and make money in those areas…

1. AFFILIATE
2. MERCHANT

Many people just want to be an AFFILIATE so they don’t have to deal with shipping products and what many feel is “actually running a business.”

Hey, what could be better than just driving traffic and getting paid?

There certainly is good money to be made as an affiliate, but if you’re only focused on generating income as an affiliate then you’re really missing the boat…

There’s a lot more opportunity in being a MERCHANT and having your own affiliate force working hard to send you traffic.

You’ve probably heard the analogy before, would you rather have 100% of your own efforts or 1% of the efforts of 100 others?

(Or however that saying goes.)

In other words, it’s a major advantage online to have a group of marketers working hard to send traffic to your site! You don’t even have to do any work… they do all the SEO, PPC campaigns, etc. You just pay that person a commission after they send you a paying customer.

It really is the “ultimate” business deal.

But to be a merchant you need to be selling your own products, right?

NOT EXACTLY.

This is a “myth” that most people completely misunderstand.

Many marketers think to sell products themselves they need to invent some unique “widget” or go and put in months of work to create some information product.

But let’s back up for a moment…

I mentioned there are TWO main product types being sold online:

1. CONTENT
2. MERCHANDISE

Content would be information products. From ebooks to DVDs, CDs, manuals, binders, etc.

But content can also be information freely publishing on blogs, web sites, or in other ways that is monetized by advertising. (i.e. AdSense or ads sold to advertisers.)

So don’t just think of ‘content’ as some infoproduct that’s sold. An active blog with regular posts that’s generating a good amount of traffic and can be monetized by ads is generating revenue from CONTENT.

To be in the content business as a MERCHANT you pretty much DO need to have your own UNIQUE CONTENT.

There are some minor exceptions to this such as “resale rights” products but in the over 15 years I’ve been marketing online I’ve yet to come across anyone making a lot of money from just selling a resale rights product.

Hey, just being honest.

Resale rights products CAN make some decent money for some, but the ones that usually do well with them are marketers that are already selling their own unique infoproducts to a group of customers and then make additional revenue by offering the resale rights product “in addition” to their main products.

I think many newbie marketers fall into the trap that they are going to get rich if they just buy the resale rights to some product they will have the license to sell.

Why doesn’t this usually work?

For the same reason almost anything won’t work… IT’S TOO EASY FOR OTHERS TO REPLICATE.

In other words, when 1,000s of people can buy the same resale rights, and all they have to do is put the pre-written, pre-designed web site online, the market is instantly SATURATED with way too much competition.

There is MASSIVE opportunity online to make money in a number of different ways, but the best opportunities are almost always those that take more WORK than others.

Yep, that’s the secret.

Okay so we discussed the CONTENT side a bit. Unless you’re going to do what it takes to create your own in-demend, UNIQUE content, it’s going to be very hard to make a lot of money.

So what’s the other option?

MERCHANDISE.

This is the ‘part’ of making money online that I think is the most misunderstood…

There are some companies online selling their own unique products that they actually manufacture, but you know what?

This is probably less than 0.1% of the BILLIONS upon BILLIONS being spent online for merchandise.

Do you think Amazon.com is actually ‘making’ the products they sell?

Nope.

How about Buy.com? Or Walmart.com? Or ToysRUs.com? Or JCPenney.com? Or BlueNile.com? Or Sears.com?

Nope. Nope. Nope.

Or what about the thousands of smaller ecommerce stores that are making their owners a small fortune?

Nope, not them either.

HUH!?!?!?

Yes, it sounds a bit confusing but on the MERCHANDISE side of ecommerce the majority of what’s being sold is being sold by MARKETERS and *not* the actual manufacturer.

And YOU have every right to be one of these marketers of merchandise online… Yes, YOU can be the MERCHANT.

AND…

You don’t have to ‘make’ or ‘invent’ a thing. Heck, you don’t even have to stock any inventory if you don’t want to either. It’s called “Dropshipping.”

You can make a lot of money with your own ecommerce store selling merchandise. (Or multiple stores if you want — they are easy and cheap to setup.)

BUT THERE’S *ONE* MAJOR PROBLEM…

Remember how I said the better opportunities are usually the ones that involve more WORK than others?

Well, when it comes to making money from your own ecommerce store, there *IS* a barrier to entry.

This is the single biggest factor that keeps so many other people from going into business with their own successful ecommerce store.

WHERE THE HECK DO I FIND A REAL WHOLESALER? (And how do I get setup to sell their stuff?)

And there it is. The Big Barrier.

THAT is why everyone and their brother isn’t setting up a successful ecommerce store.

It’s the same reason why a small percentage of eBay sellers make a lot of money week in and week out while the majority of sellers STRUGGLE to make any money at all.

If you’ve ever been surfing eBay and doing some research into these sellers you’ve probably already thought the same thing…

“If I only knew where they got their stuff I can make money by selling it too!”

And you’d be 100% right.

Too bad it’s nearly impossible to find out where they are getting their merchandise.

And don’t even think they are going to tell you so you can compete with them.

So How Do You Find Real Wholesalers?

You have two options…

1. Spend A Lot Of Your Time And Energy
To Do Heavy-Duty ‘Trial and Error’ Yourself

2. Just Pay Someone Who Has Done It
For You

Option #2 seems like a no-brainer for sure.

This is the option that companies like Amazon, Wal Mart, Buy.com, etc. use. They certainly don’t jump from ‘wholesaler’ to wholesaler and lose a ton of money only when they discover the wholesaler they were working with was a middle man marketing up the cost of the products — OR worse, they end up working with a company that doesn’t actually supply the products they promised to.

So these companies have research services they use to find the best deals and manufacturers and then they just focus on doing what they do best — MARKETING.

And this is what YOU need to do if you want to make a nice living from running your own successful ecommerce store.

But here’s the problem…

Online there’s no shortage of people ‘claiming’ to have “Secret Wholesale” lists. Look around, you’ll see them being sold everywhere.

And if you’re like me, you probably already bought some and got burned. It happened to me more than once and I’m not afraid to admit it.

I GOT SUCKERED.

And if you did too don’t feel bad. Thousands of other people get suckered every week by buying these FAKE wholesale lists.

So Let Me Just Cut To The Chase…

I know of the BEST wholesaler research service on the planet. And there’s a reason this company has been profiled by “eBay University” and Entrepreneur Magazine.

They are the REAL DEAL.

Their name is Worldwide Brands. If you’ve been on my list for awhile then you probably remember me briefly mentioning them in the past.

If you have any interest at all in this stuff then you need to just go and grab a LIFETIME membership to their awesome online directory/product research service.

It’s worth GOLD. And that’s no understatement.

And if you HURRY they are currently offering a $50.00 DISCOUNT for the next few days — which is what inspired me to write you this email to tell you all about it.

REMINDER: THIS IS NOT AN AFFILIATE PITCH.

As I previously mentioned, Income.com (my new company) is no longer emailing affiliate promotions. So I don’t make one single penny if you go and buy a membership from this company.

I just believe strongly in the INCREDIBLE VALUE that they are offering and that is why I am recommending them to you. *I* personally have my own account with them.

Income.com is going to be working with the “best of breed” products and services, and I have future plans to work with Worldwide Brands because I really believe in what they are providing their customers — and I am sick and tired of seeing people get SUCKERED like I did with those garbage supplier lists.

So in case you haven’t connected the dots yet…

Wonder where most of the successful eBay sellers found their products? Or many of the other ecommerce stores?

Through Worldwide Brands.

* You’d be surprised if you knew who some of Worldwide Brands’ customers were. Even some “big shot” gurus you probably know of are making millions by dropshipping products they found through the Worldwide Brands’ OneSource online directory.

Even if you’re slightly “on the fence” about this stuff just go to this web site and watch the VIDEO DEMONSTRATION of what this is all about. You’ll learn a lot about setting up your own online store…

* The discount ends soon so you do need to hurry if you want to save some money:

http://www.worldwidebrands.com/discount

AND IN OTHER ‘NEWS’…

I’m starting a new “series” on the Income.com Blog…

It’s called “What Are You Struggling With?”

I’ll be making posts that address many of my students’ main problems and questions with making money online.

You won’t want to miss out on this valuable information!

You can post a comment in the following entry to submit your own struggles for consideration.

I can’t promise that I will address everyone’s submission but I will do my best:
http://www.income.com/blog/2007/07/12/what-are-you-struggling-with/

I bought an iPhone on Friday (the official Launch Day) and I have really enjoyed using my new gadget. I’ve owned nearly every conceivable cellphone and PDA (Blackberrys, Sidekicks, Nokias, Palm Pilots, etc.) and I got so tired of hearing all the whiners and naysayers complaining about how the iPhone lacked this feature or that feature… well, the iPhone met my expectations and MORE.

As someone who has owned and used all of those other devices, I can easily say the iPhone CRUSHES ALL OF THEM! Without going into an all-out “feature comparison war” I’ll just sum it up this way… it’s EASIER and more pleasant to use than ANY of those other devices. Period.

Does the iPhone lack certain features? YES. But do the lack of those features outweigh the other benefits of the phone? NOT EVEN CLOSE.

The screen is HUGE. It’s a lot easier to surf web pages, read news, and watch video (or look at photos) than any other phone. That alone is reason to own it.

But it’s also FUN to use. Some people said the “virtual keyboard” was a big downfall of the iPhone. It is? Well, that’s news to me. I *PREFER* the virtual keyboard. In fact, I type MUCH FASTER than on the ‘real’ keyboards of those other phones.

You can’t change the battery yourself, and I agree with others that this is a negative feature. BUT WHO CARES! It sure isn’t going to keep me from enjoying the phone for a year or more before the battery might need to be replaced.

And others are whining about the phone using AT&T’s slow EDGE network for using the Internet. Well, yes, it’s slow if you’re trying to surf 2,000 web sites and do HEAVY usage. But if you’re going to sit for awhile with the phone and surf that much, then just go to a Wi-Fi hotspot (like any Starbucks, Panera Bread, any airport, and a million other places) and the iPhone will auto-switch over to the fast network. I have Wi-Fi in my house and it automatically switches to use it when I’m home. Not to mention that once Wi-Max starts appearing in many cities around the country this EDGE thing isn’t going to matter.

I love this little phone because it makes it fun to easily keep track of my Internet marketing efforts. I have “favorites” setup so I am always one click away from being able to check important stats or marketing campaigns that I want to track. Here’s a photo of me using the iPhone to check in on some Google Analytics stats that I am monitoring:

I recently posted about search engine optimization for blogs and asked my readers to chime in on the subject.

As expected, there were many contradictory answers and suggestions — and it’s no surprise since no one really knows exactly how Google’s algorithm works. And Google likes it that way.

But there were some incredibly valuable suggestions that were posted. You definitely should take a moment and read all the comments that were posted for that entry.

And as promised, anyone that submitted a solid tip earned a link of their choice on this blog.

Here are the contributors that I selected and their brand-spanking-new links…

Read the rest of this entry »