If you’re at all serious about Internet Marketing then you’ve got to give something back to your subscribers.

It’s no good thinking that there are thousands of people out in internet cyberspace just waiting to find your blog or web site.

‘Cos they’re not!

 There are probably thousands of sites online (if not hundreds of thousands) that people can choose to visit, so why should they choose yours? You need to accept that you need a strategy that embraces your subscribers and rewards them for their loyalty, as well as helping to earn you your daily bread.

Yes, it’s about earning money but that’s not the principle reason that you should be marketing. You should be connecting with your readers, empathising and sympathising with them. Remember, we’re all struggling with the same problems – rising prices, low salaries, job insecurity, etc.

If people see that they’re getting value for money and maybe a bit more besides then, human nature being what it is, they’re gonna come back for more.

If you can give your readers a great deal – something that’s real value for money – they’re more likely to bookmark your site and return to it regularly.

And so, in saying that, I’ve got to tell you that the offer that I’ve just put up for all my subscribers is pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.

I’m not going to give too much away here, only to say that if you have any aspirations to be an Internet Marketer then you’re not going to want to miss it.

Sign up to my newsletter now and if my offer doesn’t push your buttons then you can just as easily unsubscribe. And as I’m with Aweber then you know that when you unsubscribe, then that’s what happens.

But as a regular subscriber you should know that I intend to share as many goodies with you as I can. I want to build a strong relationship with all of you, not just today or tomorrow but for all the tomorrows after that. I’m here for the long haul and I hope you are too.

Although I found the sight amusing I couldn’t help but think that, safety aside, they were risking losing whatever-it-was they were carrying for the sake of not using the right equipment, or even securing it safely.

Internet marketing’s a bit like that. If you don’t use the right tools you’ll make life a lot harder for yourself. One such tool that I use and find invaluable is the Aweber Autoresponder. There are other autoresponders out there but this is the Rolls Royce of them. It’s no dearer than their competitors but the quality of their service is fantastic. Check it out here and you’ll see what I mean.

You can never start building your list too early so you may as well start with the best available tools that you can.

Following on from my last post I’m sure you’ve noticed how much we’re all suffering from information overload which in turn leads to a lack of direction and a marked lack of action.

We spend so much time trying to assimilate the barrage of information coming at us down the superhighway that we end up not knowing our Firefox from our Explorer and not knowing what to believe and which direction to take. A sort of information paralysis takes us over. At least, I know that’s what happens to me!

One tendency that is on the increase is the amount of bonuses we’re offered in order to get us to buy a product. Now I know that we all like a freebie but – come on – do we really need all the extras that are thrown at us? Let’s face it, most of it we wouldn’t look at  twice if it wasn’t free and we’d certainly not pay good, hard cash for it.

I for one would rather see good, high quality content, selling on its own merit but sadly I fear that I’m very unlikely to see this happen.

Or am I sensing a change in some marketer’s attitudes? I hope so for the sake of my hard drive. It’s getting awfully cluttered with cr*p these days. S’pose that means a spring clean is in order.Hey ho, it’s a hard life.

I’ve always believed that the best way to learn something is by practice. That is, get in there and get your hands dirty. Internet marketing is no different.

For example, I spent ages procrastinating about building a website. I didn’t know what html meant, I wasn’t sure that it would look any good, I didn’t know how to upload my site to a server….. and so on and so forth. Talk about dodging the issue.

I bought a couple of turn-key sites which as you can imagine were absolute junk. I invested in several ebooks and a course or two and eventually put a site of my own together. It wasn’t very pretty but it was my site, and boy! was I proud of it.

I showed it to my friends and family and they were totally underwhelmed. I just put it down to jealousy.

But then it dawned on me. I had this rather cosmetically-challenged site but unless I actually told people about it nobody knew it was there.

So although I’d finally got off my butt and done something, I hadn’t concentrated on the whole picture. I now had to learn about lots more scary stuff like Search Engine Optimisation and Adsense and so on. Which is when I realised that I needed a mentor. And not just any old mentor but someone I trusted.

Now, I’ve got a website online which sells ebooks and this was created by John Thornhill. As a member of the planetsms forum (planetsms is John’s eBay identity) and my association with John I soon realised that here was a very genuine guy, so when I saw that he was offering an internet marketing teaching course I was very interested, to say the least.

Once again procrastination got the better of me and I was too late to enrol in his first course but I put my name down to be notified as to when the next course would begin and sat at my PC as sign-up day dawned, both index fingers poised and ready to pound those keys and sign up as soon as I could.

As yet I am unsure as to which direction my efforts will be taking me but you can be sure that I’ve learned a valuable lesson. Do your due diligence first and then get in there and just do it. Nobody says it has to be perfect first time out of the stable but unless you get your act in gear your baby (sorry!- your project) is never even going to see the light of day.

Today I’ve learnt how to change my blog theme, how to set up an autoresponder account with aweber (which actually works, would you believe!) and how to get and add Adsense code to my blog.

Before I know it I’ll be a proper Internet Marketer. (Thanks to John and Daniel).

Although these things have always seemed very daunting to me, it’s surprising how straightforward they become when the process is properly explained. A bit like learning to drive a car for the first time, I suppose. There seems to be so much to learn and remember when you start. Clutch control, steering, lane control, how hard to brake, what’s this gear lever thingy for?, etc,etc. But once you’ve passed your driving test and have a bit of experience under your belt, I bet you’ll wonder what you were worried about. In fact, you won’t even think about it – you’ll just do it on auto piklot (sorry, I mean auto pilot! Told you I was a cr*p typist, didn’t I?).

Anyway, I suppose what I’m trying to say in my round-about way is not to get too hung up on the technical side of things as there is always someone who can show you how to do things. It may take a small investment of time and/or money but believe me it’s well worth it from where I’m standing.

And remember, you don’t have to know everything before you start. The main thing is just to start. The rest will come. And if your initial efforts are not exactly up to the standard that you expect, don’t beat yourself up about it. You will improve. But if you never even start then you’ve got no chance at all.

On a rather different note, I’ve got to tell you that my wife has just told me that she’s going to cut some parsley from her herb garden. I rather foolishly pointed out that the “garden” was actually one those boxes with parsley, mint and rosemary growing in it and the word HERBS stenciled on the side but she refused to be convinced and tells me that she is going to continue referring to it as her herb garden, regardless of what I say. Now that’s real go-getting optimism!

And anyway, I’m no internet guru!

So there’s not an awful lot of clever, interesting stuff to write about today unless you count the really cool little application I found today. It’s called The Magic Boss Key and it allows me to hide any folder, browser or application I might be using simply by pressing the right and left hand mouse buttons simultaneously. You can download it for free at http://www.magictweak.com/?ref=mgboss
Just look for it on the right hand side of the page under Free Utilities.

Now I haven’t really got anything to hide but I just love toys, don’t you?

I’m possibly being a bit optimistic to think that there’s anybody reading my blog yet, seeing how brand new it is. However for the purpose of this exercise I’m going to assume that there are millions of you out there, all eagerly awaiting my next post.

I have recently subscribed to the John Thornhill Personal Coaching Program and I’ve got to tell you how good this program is. This is now my second week out of a total of 16 and although at the moment 16 weeks seems a bit daunting, I’m going to knuckle down to it as I feel that at last I am being shown the way to make it happen for me online. John’s teaching style is very relaxed and informal and he assures all of us that we can do this. More importantly, I believe him.

More importantly I’ve realised that I’m finally learning something of real value regarding Internet Marketing (which, incidentally, I’m going to abbreviate to IM from now on as I’m such a cr*p typist).

At this time of writing John’s program is fully subscribed, as he only takes on a finite number of people to teach at any one time. This is in order to be able to give everybody as much attention as he or she needs. However, if you are interested in being taught about IM then I suggest you do as I did and put your name down to be contacted by John when he re-opens his bookings.

Now for a bit about myself. I’ve been interested in IM for the past few years but like a lot of people I tried to educate myself by buying the latest must-have, sure-fire, put-money-in-your-bank-account-while-you-sleep scheme that everybody and his brother seemed to be selling. I must have been an Internet Marketer’s dream! I knew in my heart of hearts that most of this stuff was just smoke and mirrors but there was always that small, nagging voice in my head that said “What if this is THE ONE?” You know, the one that gives you the missing pieces, that gives you that “aha!”moment and makes everything fall into place.

I was on more lists than you can shake a stick at. Maybe you are too. But I’ve decided that all that is over now. I’m going to unsubscribe from all but what I see as the most genuine lists. One of these days I fully intend to start my own list to market to. If you’re still around by then I hope that you’ll see me as one of the good guys because, like John Thornhill, I propose to give you all the information you need.