Marketing on a Shoestring

You can spend all the money you want on Google Adwords and their competitors and all that you will get is short-term effects. Shoestring Marketing, on the other hand, will produce results that will last weeks, months or maybe even years. Advertising is not only expensive but it only works while you are forking out your hard-earned dollars. Shoestring marketing costs nearly nothing and builds long term trust and respect. The 5 top secrets that I mentioned earlier are not really secrets but the top 5 methods of marketing on a shoestring.

1. Build a list. You have heard time and time again that the money is in the list. That is not exactly true. The money is in the trust and respect you receive from producing a quality content filled newsletter. Most newsletters are nothing more than blatant advertising but if you give your readers solid content, you will build trust and respect and when you do promote a product, your readers are far more likely to buy from you. One note of caution, don’t go cheap when you pick an autoresponder. Go for the best. Not only do they have higher delivery rates, they also will keep you out of legal hassles. There are a lot of laws involved in email marketing and the FTC can be a real dragon. Many ISPs are so afraid of the FTC that at the slightest sign of a spam complaint, they will shut down your website. Being cheap with an autoresponder could be mighty expensive.

2. Article Marketing is absolutely the best in terms of building trust and respect for your expertise and it is truly a long run affair. Some articles will be picked up by other websites, blogs and social networks, months or even years after you originally wrote the article. The web has a voracious appetite for solid quality information and article marketing meets this need. Not only will this bring you trust and respect, it will build quality back-links. Quality back-links will always improve any Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that you may do.

3. Build a quality content rich website. Nothing is worse than writing great articles and then have the reader click on an Opt-in page. Certainly, you need an opt-in page but it should not be the site that they land on after reading one of your articles. Your readers are looking for content-not fluff. Certainly, you can put an opt-in page on your website, just don’t let it be the first thing that your article readers see.

4. YouTube and the other video sites can be a great method of producing quality traffic for your website. Although, you can’t meet your customers face to face, at least they can see you and hear you on the video sites. This is a great source of quality traffic. If your videos look professional, you will have much the same effect as article marketing.

5. Social networking. Almost everyone I know is on one of the social networking sites-Squidoo, MySpace or one of the myriad of others. For sheer volume of visitors, the social network sites cannot be beaten. There is one caveat (aside from your blog) the quality of visitor is not nearly as good as you will get from article marketing. Certainly, spend some time on the social networks, but not too much. You will get a ton of visitors but, not a lot of customers.

There are many other shoestring marketing methods and you should use them all. These five are the ones that you should concentrate upon.

Unlike Brick and Mortar businesses, where you can meet your customer face to face, you only have two basic options when it comes to internet marketing-your website and your newsletter. No, I am not forgetting about social networking, Youtube and the others. I am talking about your primary point of contact with your customers.

It is far easier in the Brick and Mortar world to build trust. On the net, it is far more difficult but, if you don’t work on building trust with your customers, your online business will fail. So, the question is how do you go about building trust with someone that you will probably never meet in person.

First thing that you must do is create a killer page. Put your picture on your site. Put your name, address, email address and a contact phone number on your contact page. You should also put a contact form on your contact page. This information should also appear in every newsletter that you put out and make sure that your readers understand that you truly want to hear from them. This way you are not just a faceless entity.

On your website, you should also put a bio page (About Me) giving your reader a glimpse into your personality, your background and what you intend to do with your website and newsletter. Again, this is a trust building issue and the more the reader knows about you, the more they are likely trust and respect you.

Make sure that your website is more than just a sales page. Your website and newsletter should always have solid fresh content on your niche. If you provide your readers with expert content, they are far more likely to trust you.

When it comes to the products you promote, make sure that they are products that you have either used yourself or at least have a copy of so that you can honestly represent that the product really does what it claims and that you can attest to that from first hand experience. I have several websites (they are all areas of personal interest) and every product I promote I have either used or have a copy of the product. A customer is far more likely to buy from you if they know that you are personally involved with the product. When you can tell the customer that you own the product and give them the personal results that you have had with the product.

Avoid Hype. The shortest way to lose a reader’s trust is to over-hype a product. If anything, a little understatement will go that extra mile in product promotion. Anyone who has been on the net for any period of time immediately sees hype for what it is and will quickly kill the trust that you are trying to build with your customer.

Another thing that I now like to do with my websites is to produce a Youtube video of myself talking about some of the content on my website and then embed the video on the website. As they can’t see you in person,at least they get to see you on the video. It gives them just one more reason to trust you and your expertise.

In closing, the main point with your website and newsletter is to use them to create mutual respect and trust between you and your readers. Give them the respect that they deserve and you will gain their respect.

Not only can success be habit forming, in order to become a success, you need to build some new habits.

I know that if you have been reading my articles, that you have a pretty good idea about how effective Shoestring Marketing can be but, if you don’t put this knowledge to use (take action) then you will have no success at all. The best method I know of creating success is by making the action step a habit.

The commonly held belief is that if you can do something for 21 days straight, it will become a habit. While you may have all of the knowledge in the world, if you don’t make taking action a habit, you will be no better off than if you had no knowledge at all.

There are many techniques to Shoestring Marketing. Take just one of them and turn it into a habit. For example, article marketing has been extremely effective for me. So, for the next 21 days, write and publish an article. Before you do anything else in the day, write your article. Don’t read your email, surf the web or anything else, just get right into writing and publishing your article.

At the end of 21 days, look back at the results of your article marketing. How many responsive hits has your website had? Google your name. How many results do you get back? I can tell you right now you will be shocked at the results. Not only that, having done this for 21 days, you have developed a new habit and will look forward to writing your articles.

After that 21 day period, you can then take on one of the other methods of Shoestring Marketing and watch as your success grows. You are not only developing the habit of applying the Shoestring Marketing methods, you are developing the habit of success.

Don’t wait until tomorrow, start your habit of success today. Like anything else in life, success is just a habit that you need to develop and taking action is the primary foundation for all success.

It doesn’t matter if you are building a web page, article marketing, or any number of methods of promoting your business, understatement may be key to your credibility and ultimate success.

In any area of internet marketing, the public has become very sensitive to hype and if you bill yourself to be the very best at what you do, the public is going to believe that anything you say or do becomes suspect. There is simply far too much hype in the internet marketing business.

On the other hand, if you present the understated case that you are very good at what you do and then compare yourself to the Gurus in your field, your readers are much more likely to trust you.

For example, if you have spent years studying Golf and along the way have learned many of the tips and tricks of the trade, you can certainly make a legitimate case for reading your web site or newsletter. At this point, you might also be able to mention that Tiger Woods in one of your heroes and that is why you promote his products. What you are basically saying is: I’m no Tiger Woods but I can help you improve your game. Understating your expertise in this manner builds your credibility and your readers will not see you as simply trying to hype yourself.

Golf is not my niche, affiliate marketing is mine and I have become good at it but, I am not the best. There are true Gurus in my field (for example Ewen Chia) and if I try to promote myself as being on a par with him, everyone will know that it is nothing more than pure hype and my credibility is going to go down the drain. In affiliate marketing, we call the very best to be Gurus and that is why I both buy and promote their products. If I were to promote myself as a Guru, there would be an instant loss of credibility and readers are going to see it as just more internet marketing hype.

So, the next time you build a web site, send a message to your list or write an article, use a little understatement and watch your credibility and your business grow. In a field filled with hype, a little understatement goes a long way.

If you have taken the route of Marketing on a Shoestring, time management is one of the key factors for your success. One of the easiest ways to find more time in your day is to click on the unsubscribe link on the email lists that you belong to. It is simple and quick and will save you countless wasted hours.

Certainly, I am not saying that you should unsubscribe from every list that you belong to, only the ones that are not giving you useful content. All they are doing is wasting your time. The lists that I am talking about are the ones that the last piece of good information you received from them was the free ebook that came with your opt-in. If fact, I now offer a free ebook just for reading my opt-in page without a registration requirement. Then when someone does join my newsletter, I have developed a much more responsive reader.

If you look at the number of emails that you have received all promising to give you the secrets to the internet kingdom and really give you nothing more than a blatant series of non-stop propositions, they are just wasting your time. In the long run, if you are only getting promos and not content, just unsubscribe. This way you don’t have to spend the time checking out the emails individually and you will end up with a lot more time saved in your daily routine.

I subscribe to every list that comes down the line in hopes that it is one of the good ones that will help me build my business. After just one or two emails, you know if you are going to get real content or it is just a waste of your time. My subscriptions to email lists has now been dropped down to about a dozen good content filled newsletters and all the rest have gone the way of the dinosaur.

As a Shoestring Marketer, your time is the most valuable commodity that you have, don’t waste it having to sort though a jungle of worthless promotions every day. Just hit the unsubscribe link and put your time to better use.

Advertising and internet marketing are just like cats and dogs. The dog (marketing) listens to you and is faithful. The cat (advertising) is also your pet but, his reactions are totally unpredictable, when you reach down to pet him, it is just as likely to bite you as let you give him a little loving. Yes, there are both pets but the reactions may be completely opposite of what you expect. Too many marketers, both newcomers and experienced, confuse advertising and marketing, believing that they are both the same animal. That’s a big mistake.

How many times have you devoted countless hours developing an advertising campaign and then watched it flop and do nothing more than swipe your hard-earned dollars. Then another time, a hastily built campaign made you a small fortune. Either way, advertising is only effective while you are pumping money into it and in the long term has no lasting results.

Internet marketing is much more like your pet dog. You develop a bond of mutual love and respect and when you walk through the door at the end of a long day, the dog is sitting there, wagging his tail and happy to see you. When you throw a stick into the field, you can always depend upon the dog to return it to you.

Advertising has it’s place and you will use it but, marketing will help you build a sustainable business. In marketing, you build upon a basis of mutual trust and respect and your clients will respond in kind. When you do advertise to your client base, only promote the best of products-products that you would use and believe in. If you ever promote a product that doesn’t deliver on what it promises, you are cheating your clients and ultimately yourself. You will lose all of the trust and respect that you have worked so hard to create.

An excellent example of marketing is in your choice of a stockbroker. A good stockbroker builds on the trust of his clients and if he ever leaves his current company, he takes his client list along with him. His clients trust him and not the brokerage firm that he is working for. He has helped his clients become successful and in doing so, he has also become successful. You never trust your money to some faceless company, you trust the broker that you respect and build a bond that overrides any advertising that his company may do.

Yes, go ahead and use advertising but, remember that the only long term results that you have come from building that bond of trust and mutual respect that comes from marketing not advertising. One final note, don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Only promote products that you trust and respect.

Everyone knows the value of Article Marketing. It displays your expertise, builds trust with your readers and builds great natural back-links to your website. However, there is one fatal flaw that I have been making which destroys everything that I have been working for.

My articles have been widely published and have created substantial traffic to my opt-in site for my newsletter and that in itself becomes the problem. My signature file was a link to my newsletter opt-in page. Thanks to an email from EzineArticles, I have stopped that practice.

Let me explain, you go to all the work of writing a good content based article to display your expertise and build trust and the first thing I was doing was sending my readers to an opt-in site that offered no content and it immediately destroyed the trust that I was trying to build.

Today, my signature file sends my readers to a content rich website where they learn even more about my niche and helps them to build their online businesses. Yes, there is a prominently displayed link to my newsletter opt-in but, there is plenty of content rich business building information on my signature site to further display my knowledge and build reader trust.

So, think about this when you build your signature file. Are you giving your readers more content and building expertise and trust or are you cheating your readers by giving them just another opt-in page?

Another thing that I am doing (and this could be a separate article) is that I no longer offer a free ebook to sign up for my newsletter. I found that too many people were signing up just to get the ebook. Now I offer a free ebook with no sign-up required just to read my opt-in page. I then offer my newsletter to those readers who are seriously interested in building their business. I don’t need a massive list of people who just signed up for a freebie, I only want readers who are serious about my niche and will actually read my newsletter for it’s rich content. Sure the freebie created a massive list but not a learned and responsive list. I know the gurus all tout giving away a freebie to build your list but it does you no good if the only reason they signed up was for the freebie. I don’t need freebie seekers, I need readers who have a serious business building mindset.

Enough of my rant for today, just make sure that your signature file leads your readers to content rather than the fluff of an opt-in site. If you are not receiving the newsletter from EzineArticles.com, sign up-it is well worth the time invested in reading it.

There really is no excuse for failing to make a living or even a fortune on the internet. It is simply a matter of mindset and application. Those who fail on the net usually do so by shooting themselves in the foot.

Let me ask some questions. How many ebooks do you own? How many business opportunities have you purchased? How many new membership sites have you joined? How many newsletters do you receive? Don’t bother to answer, I know the answers. You have at least 100 or more ebooks sitting on your hard drive just sitting there collecting cyber-dust. You have purchased many business opportunities but, never applied the techniques. Joined every new membership site and then didn’t follow through and the newsletters, you may be receiving dozens of them (many of them like mine that are filled with business building content) but, you don’t even bother to open them and utilize the rich content within.

Internet marketing is a great way to make your living or even become rich. Some complain that there is too much competition and that it is hard to make any money on the net. They say that the only people that are making money got into the market 10 years ago when the competition was low. That is simply hogwash. The internet is still in it’s infancy and the opportunities to become rich have never been greater and will continue to grow.

Eleven years ago, when I first started marketing on the net, ebooks were unknown, business opportunities were miserable and there was no such thing as a membership site. We have come a long way since then. Not only do we have all of these things at our fingertips, look at the growth in forums, blogging, video, article marketing and of course the social networking sites. If you really want to become a success today, the cyber-world is on your doorstep and ringing the bell to get in.

You don’t need to spend a fortune on everything new that comes down the line. Go back and start reading those ebooks and those long forgotten bizops that you purchased and actually read the good newsletters that you have subscribed to. Develop a business mindset. Realize that an internet business is just as real as any brick and mortar business and treat it that way. Most of all, take action. Treat your internet business just like you would a 9 to 5 job. Show up to work on time, actually do the work and apply the marketing techniques on a consistent basis. Then and only then will you find success.

Business is business. Treat it that way and put in the work and don’t go crying about the “good old days”. Today, right now is the best time ever to make your fortune online. There are only 2 main ingredients required, a business mindset and the sustained and consistent application of work. If work is a dirty word for you then go back to your 9 to 5 job. You will find it much easier and most employers don’t get much real work out of their employees anyway. On the other hand, build your internet business the right way and be prepared to accept that being rich isn’t such a bad thing.

No excuses-get to work.

Kill or be killed may seem a little dramatic but, with all of the competition for your reader’s interest, if you don’t write a killer headline for your newsletter, the results are going to kill your business. It is one thing to get people on your list but if they don’t read your newsletter, you end up dead in the water.

When I first started out email marketing, I thought that all I needed to do was headline my newsletter with the newsletter name and everyone would read it. Then I looked at my open rate stats and nearly died. I work really hard to put a solid content business building article into each newsletter that is sure to build my readers’ businesses. But, after reviewing my stats, I realized that the only reason that people were signing up for my newsletter was to get the unique ebook that I was offering free with my opt-in form.

I knew that the people that were actually reading my newsletter were getting great business building information and those few were also very responsive and were buying my products. I only promote the best products in my niche. The goal then was to get more people not only to join my list but to actually read the content.

I realized that most of my list members are likely members of many other lists and that the competition for their time was paramount. It was then that I changed over to writing a killer headline for each newsletter that I sent out. Of course, offering something free in the headline would be the best headline of all but, there is just so much free stuff that you are able to offer. In lieu of a free offering with each newsletter, I chose the route of writing a killer headline that would force them to open my emails. My emails are so content rich that once someone actually starts reading them, I am able to gain their respect for my expertise and build the bridge of trust between us.

Typically, it only takes about 20 or so minutes to write a great newsletter. I now spend at least three times as much time dedicated to writing a killer headline. If you don’t have a killer headline, your hard work and expertise are going to turn to dust.

Ever since I started writing attention grabbing killer headlines, my open rate has skyrocketed and as a result my business was back on the path. So, the moral to this little story is don’t just rely on your list to build your business, give them a killer headline and a good reason to open your email. No matter how good your newsletter is, it does you no good if list members don’t bother to even open it up.

If you question this, just think back to the emails that you received this morning. How many did you actually read and how many did you just send to the trash bin and what was the reason you opened the emails that you did? You and I both know the answer, it was the headline that captured your attention. So now, go back to your list and write them a killer headline and give them a real reason to read your content. Like I said: Kill or be Killed.

When you first start out on the internet marketing path, you are barraged with an almost overwhelming wealth of information. One of the best methods of overcoming the information overload, is to find someone who can teach you the best practices in the industry. However, extreme care should be taken in who you choose to be your teacher.

I am not saying that you need to go out and hire a consultant. Certainly, a personal consultant could be a great influence on your internet success. However, the cost for good consulting can be rather costly. I, primarily, use the concept of modeling. I chose a number of successful internet marketers (some of them are called gurus) and modeled their behavior.

In modeling, you try to take on the attributes of your chosen mentor. You study how they market, how they started, what kind of content they put in their newsletters and carefully study how they put together a sales page. This only scratches the surface but, you can see that by studying a successful marketer, you can improve your marketing prowess.

I said earlier that you should choose your teachers wisely. By this I mean that you should only model successful marketers who have achieved success through the highest standards of marketing. There are many marketers on the net who will be more that happy to teach you underhanded techniques, but, if you learn from them you are only setting yourself up for failure.

With many of the methods being taught today, you could rapidly find yourself banned by your ISP, blocked from ever being listed on Google and possibly subject to criminal or civil litigation. You can usually predict who these unscrupulous marketers are by simply reading their sales letters. If they promise instant gratification, no work involved and riches beyond belief, close the page and distance yourself from them and their methods. You can’t go wrong from learning from someone who has built there reputation and business on the simple concept of integrity. In internet marketing, you have only truly built a business when you have built your reputation on expertise and integrity.

In addition to modeling, you may also want to contact you local Chamber of Commerce or SCORE. SCORE “Counselors to America’s Small Business” is a nonprofit association dedicated to educating entrepreneurs and the formation, growth and success of small business nationwide. SCORE is a resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).

Either way, model the best to become the best.