Internet Marketing Tell All

In the original version, though, when I came around to the point of the Beastiality, it didn’t quite work out. Here’s the basic point though: Reality marketing will always make you more money than fairy tale marketing.

Real marketing isn’t lying, and if you think it is, you’re probably broke right now. The two truths are related.

Marketing is, however, telling the truth is a creative way.

The first time someone said that to me, he was talking about cheating on his wife. It’s funny how some of us are hardwired to interpret creative truth-telling as lying.

In fairy tale marketing, we attempt to hypnotize our victim sucker potential client into believing that whatever we are selling is a cure-all, a magic elixir, and that after they give us just $1997 in three easy payments, they will experience a happily ever after.

A good marketer knows how to make the actual expected outcome just as desireable. And there is the difference. The best example of how this works in real life is the movies.

Ironically, the only way we’ll accept fiction is if it is true to life. We go to the movies to observe stories we know not to be true, by going through a process called “suspension of disbelief”. We go into sort of a trance, and feel as if the story is happening to us.

Bad movies have one thing in common - at some point, they trigger our bullshit meter. The same thing is true of bad marketing.

Did you know that the guys who made The 40 Year Old Virgin didn’t expect it to be a hit? The most common reason that people saw the picture, then saw it again, then bought the DVD, was because it was so true to life. Even that story one of the characters told at the card table about making love to a woman, and that her cat got involved rang true.

Not because it sounded like it actually happened - because it sounded like BS that someone would come up with on the spot.

(See what I mean? I worked in the beastiality, but it wasn’t enough for the original title to warrant it.)

You want marketing to make you rich? You want to sell products with low return rates? Mix in a healthy dose of reality. About the product, about you, another customer’s experience, it doesn’t matter.

If you can make it ring true, you can make it feel real. If it feels real, it is real. When it is real, it’s not a hard sell. When it’s not a hard sell, you make more of them.

Maybe a better title is “The Real Reason My Friends and I Were Broke and What We Did About It.” No, it’s not gonna be a bunch of Law of Attraction posts, though that’s part of it.

Special thanks and shout outs to everyone who stopped by on my day of inner reflection (read: Hijacked Laptop). I answered all your comments and you’re welcome by anytime. This afternoon and tomorrow are my prime comment times, so expect me by your blogs for extensive contact.

Off we go then.

I’m trying to think of things I haven’t talked about, and also go through certain things in a more organized fashion - where do I start and what can I say that would be useful to a new person, or a checkpoint to someone with an intermediate marketing backround?

What I came up with is to publish the checklist to the plan I use to launch a new infoproduct, from research to launch.

I may come back and edit. Feel free to chime in if it looks like I skipped something. (I used a version of this when selling affiliate products, but there are some steps you’d have to drop or change. I’ll discuss that when I examine each point in detail within upcoming posts.)

1. Research the market
2. Narrow to several products and test market response
3. Pick an entry product and an upsell product
4. Create a content site for list building, marketing and/or networking
5. Market the site and gather more research from the signed up audience
6. Write a sales letter for your private use describing the ideal product
7. Write PPC/solo ads/ezine ads, etc
8. Create the enticement for the squeeze page/mini-site
9. Create the squeeze page for your private use (optional - combine with sales letter to make a mini-site)
10. Create the product (and upsell if applicable)
11. Test the product with past clients or admired mentors
12. Improve the product with their suggestions
13. Solicit multi-media testimonials (pictures, audio)
14. Test/polish the sales letter
15. Test/polish promotional materials and/or ads
16. Create any additional buzz
17. Choose a date for product launch
18. Set up sales and product delivery
19. Make a promotional plan for the product
20. Make an advertising plan for the product
21. Do any pre-execution for advertising/marketing
22. Test sales process (and product delivery if electronic) and follow-up
23. Automate the entire marketing and sales system as much as possible
24. Test sales/delivery process again post-automation
25. Create follow-up schedule for clients (in addition to autoresponder)
26. Have a dress rehearsal
27. Execute