Issue #2405
- WEALTHY: The "side window" approach to marketing (Dan Kennedy)
- HEALTHY: How to make your crisper a safer place (James LaValle)
- WISE: Leigh Steinberg on developing expertise
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- 3 guidelines to promoting yourself at work (Suzanne Richardson)
- A Sunday New York Times at your door each morning (Bob Bly)
- It’s Good to Know… about the vinyl frontier
- Add "lineament" to your vocabulary
Do You Need to Start Out Small ?
If you don’t have an Internet business yet, or if your company is smaller than $1 million, then you need something different… something that lets you start off small.
One man I know turned $10 into over $500,000. How’s that for starting small!
Let me show you how you could get a similar Internet income stream running for almost nothing.
- Charlie Byrne
ETR Associate Publisher
"Very narrow areas of expertise can be very productive. Develop your own profile. Develop your own niche."
Leigh Steinberg
Riches in Niches
By Dan Kennedy
I am always amazed at the remarkable opportunities there are to identify specific target markets, to tailor goods, services, offers, and messages to them, and to reach them through publications they read with intense interest.
I’m also amazed that more marketers don’t take advantage of them.
For example, there are magazines for every conceivable kind of pet owner, including some you may not have known existed (like Miniature Donkey Talk for, you guessed it, owners of miniature donkeys). And every month, one of my former clients advertises a home-study course on careers in animal care in virtually all of them.
Art Talk and Southwest Art are two regional magazines for art gallery patrons, art buyers, and investors. Presumably, a pretty affluent crowd. But I can’t recall seeing any financial ads in these publications. Wonder why?
Or consider Fate, Magical Blend, and Shaman’s Drum. (Fate magazine has been a "secret" of a lot of information marketers.)
Car Stereo Review’s Mobile Entertainment (all about and only about mobile music systems, car stereos, MP3s, etc.)… Airline Pilot ("The Magazine of Professional Flight Deck Crews")… Woman Pilot (for women who are private pilots – and who, I’d guess are affluent, independent thinkers, and probably entrepreneurial)… Perdido: Leadership with a Conscience (a magazine for metaphysical-leaning executives).
There are quite a few ethnic magazines in many different categories (including Family Digest, "the Black Mom’s Best Friend"). For years, I worked with a business-opportunity advertiser who used them all. Same ad. Just switched the testimonials (with photos) to match the ethnicity and gender of the publication’s audience.
There are magazines for many different health conditions, including Arthritis Today… Hepatitis Magazine… In Touch (cancer-treatment).
There’s Reunions Magazine (for people organizing family reunions – a good place for a company that makes custom T-shirts, polo shirts, etc. to advertise)… Good Old Days ("America’s premier nostalgia magazine")… and Lakeside Celebrating Life on the Water (one of a number of magazines for people who have vacation homes).
And there’s Brew Your Own (for home beer makers)… Classic Toy Trains (for people who spend an amazing amount of dough on toy trains)… Crochet World Magazine… Dollhouse Miniatures Magazine. (Collectors and hobbyists are rabid, passionate, and irrational. They spend.)
Sadly, a lot of ETR readers have already bailed out of this message, deciding it doesn’t apply to them. "What does this have to do with me? I own a restaurant, auto body shop, sell real estate, etc." Well, here are four reasons this information is important to nearly all marketers:
1. As I often point out, every potential customer belongs to at least one business, professional, occupational, or vocational niche AND has at least one interest on the side. And people pay infinitely more attention to what comes to them through those side windows than through their front doors.
2. The "small" magazines often have ridiculously cheap advertising rates. They cater to a small crowd with a narrow interest. They don’t attract any big, dumb, image advertisers, and that forces them to keep their rates low. These magazines are analogous to what small towns were for Wal-Mart and what college-campus-adjacent locations were for Domino’s Pizza.
3. Most magazines rent their subscriber lists. And even local marketers can benefit from the work they do by rounding up and identifying people with very, very, very specific interests.
Right now, we have one Inner Circle member who has determined that his odds of closing a sale go up exponentially if the prospect plays golf twice a week AND has a swimming pool in his backyard. Finding the frequent golfers is easy. It’s proving more difficult to get lists of pool owners. Maybe he’ll make this work… or maybe he won’t. But at least he KNOWS what he’s looking for. Most marketers don’t.
4. Everybody – including you – stubbornly, incorrectly, insists and devoutly believes that they’re different. The miniature donkey owner, for example, thinks his critter has nothing at all in common with a full-size donkey. I laugh every time I open up Hoof Beats (the magazine for those of us in harness racing) and see a stupid company’s big, full-color ad for a feed or vitamin or gadget with a picture of a thoroughbred horse in the ad.
The above-mentioned ad is DOA. 90 percent of harness horse people not only think their horses have nothing in common with other breeds, they detest and despise people involved with thoroughbreds. And vice versa.
So it is with every niche, every subculture. That’s why there’s a magazine JUST for Cessna owners, JUST for Honda Acura owners – and an ad with a testimonial from a Beechcraft owner or a Toyota owner is useless there.
Of course, all this is useless to you if you insist on being a "generalist" and making one big, sloppy offer to anybody and everybody. Or if you don’t bother to learn the minute details about your best customers so you can hunt for their clones in the subscriber lists of special-interest magazines.
To find low-cost publications to advertise in, go to the library or your nearest Barnes & Noble and check out the special-interest magazines. You’re looking for two possibilities: (1) Magazines that might appeal to the kind of people you sell to, and (2) magazines with readers that you might be able to "tweak" your product/service for. For example, if you own a resort, maybe you could put together a "family reunion" package and advertise it in Reunions Magazine.
It’s astounding to me what people don’t know, never uncover, never investigate. People look but do not see. You have to hunt for opportunity. It doesn’t come knocking at your door. And one of the opportunities you should hunt for most aggressively is new markets.
[Ed. Note: Dan Kennedy, aka "The Millionaire Maker," is known worldwide as a leading consultant in direct marketing, copywriting, Internet strategies, and profit improvement systems. Find out more and get Dan's Most Incredible FREE Gift Ever - over $613.91 of pure money-making information, including his NEW series of Glazer-Kennedy FREE webinars - here.
And discover more easy-to-implement marketing strategies and expert advice on how to apply them to your own Internet business here.]
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The Easy Way to Internet Profits for Lazy Entrepreneurs
If you can push a button, you can make money online. Yes, there’s more to it than that, but not too much. Just 3 simple steps. This new online business opportunity is for truly lazy entrepreneurs who still want to make a very nice online income.
I’m still shaking my head at how shockingly simple and easy this is. And this business has been purposely kept “low-key” to keep others from discovering and using it. Not anymore, because one of the Internet’s elite has just spilled the beans…
Click here to get all the inside details…
Make Sure You Sell Yourself at Work
Marketing isn’t just for making sales. You need to learn how to market your most important asset – yourself – if you hope to get ahead.
As Michael Masterson says in Automatic Wealth for Grads, "Doing your job well is good. And getting better at it as time passes is better. But unless you let your boss and other powerful people at work know about your progress, you can’t be sure they will help you. Make it a habit to update your superiors, in writing, on the challenges you face and the objectives you’ve achieved."
Michael recommends that you follow three rules when promoting yourself professionally:
- Tell the truth. False promotion is worse than none at all.
- Be generous with credit to others.
- When reporting your accomplishments, be specific… and keep your ego in check.
Make sure you keep your boss up-to-date on all the hard work you do. That way, he’ll know for sure that you’re worth keeping around.
[Ed. Note: If you (or a young person you know) are just starting out in a new job or career, having a mentor like Michael Masterson can help you speed up the time it takes to succeed. Get Michael's powerful action plan that you can put to work immediately and begin building a life of financial security right here.]
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Are You Suffering from "RSS Feed Overload"?
By Bob Bly
When Yale librarian Rutherford Rogers said "We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge," he could have been talking about Chris Schroeder. In a speech at the Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA) conference recently, Schroeder, CEO of Health Central Network, said RSS feeds are a great way to keep up with what’s new in your field. He then showed a slide of his own RSS feed inbox, and noted that it had 2,000 items awaiting his attention.
Mr. Schroeder, I have news for you. If you have 2,000 unread items in your RSS feed, it is anything BUT an ideal way of getting information. Over-subscribing to free content via RSS feeds is an invitation to information overload disaster – equivalent to getting a Sunday New York Times delivered to your door every day of the year.
Schroeder and many other people I know subscribe to so many data sources, their RSS feeds deliver hundreds or thousands of items a week – more than they could ever hope to read. I believe Mr. Schroeder either over-estimates his own need for information or is unable to distinguish between what he needs to know vs. what he would like to know.
These days, more information is published online every 24 hours than you could read in five years. The key to managing it is to be more selective, not less. So ruthlessly unsubscribe to e-zines, RSS feeds, etc. until you get only what you absolutely need.
Even then, you won’t have time to read even a small fraction of what you get. But at least your inbox will be somewhat under control.
[Ed. Note: There's no doubt you need to be super-selective when deciding what is valuable - and what's a time stealer. Learn how to take control of your life - and even create time for yourself - right here.
Make sure you check out the Direct Response Letter, Bob Bly's e-zine, filled with useful strategies for improving your marketing. Sign up today and get over $100 in free bonuses.]
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Contaminated Crops
Fresh produce is a key component of a healthy diet, and I’m constantly reminding patients to increase their intake. But recent headlines have opened our eyes to the fact that when we eat fresh fruit and vegetables, we may be literally biting off more than we can chew.
In 2007, the featured dish was spinach with a pinch of E. coli. This year, it’s tomatoes ala salmonella. The culprit in the spinach contamination was manure runoff from a neighboring dairy farm, but the source of the tomato contamination has yet to be determined. Some blame the FDA, which, according to a CBS news report, has been lax in its inspections. And it’s no wonder, since they are down some 2,250 inspectors from 2003, leaving fewer than 2,000 inspectors for over 200,000 facilities.
As our food sources expand, we must become even more aware of possible sources of contamination and take steps to prevent disease. Hormones, pharmaceuticals, and other components of sewage sludge (which is used as fertilizer), along with stomach acid-resistant E. coli from the manure of grain-fed cattle (also used as fertilizer), as well as pathogens from human handling, are all contaminants that can end up on your dinner table.
But don’t boycott eating vegetables and fruits. Instead, shop wisely. Always wash your produce – even if it’s organic – with a vegetable wash. Purchase locally grown foods whenever possible. Frequent your neighborhood farmer’s market, join a community supported agriculture (CSA) group or co-op, plant a garden, or, if you’re short on time or resources, plant a patio garden. Finally, having beneficial bacteria in your gut will help fight off any unwanted bugs – so take a high-quality probiotic to establish beneficial intestinal flora.
[Ed. Note: It truly is possible to improve your health just by making a few simple changes to your diet and lifestyle. James B. LaValle, RPh, ND, CCN - founder of the LaValle Metabolic Institute and a nationally recognized expert on natural therapies - can give you easy-to-understand directions for living the healthy life you've always wanted. Learn how to feel better and live longer right here.]
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It’s Good to Know: The Vinyl Frontier
Hey, baby boomer, you didn’t throw out your record player and all your old LPs, did you? You see, vinyl is experiencing something of a renaissance. Mainstream music retailers, spurred by a 36 percent jump in record sales from 2006 to 2007, have started selling LPs again. (CD sales dropped 17 percent in the same period.) And many bands are releasing new albums on vinyl in addition to the usual CD and digital download. Adherents insist that listening to an album on vinyl gives the sound more warmth and depth than digital media.
(Source: Associated Press)
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How Do Some People “Make It” When Others Don’t?
You’ve got 24 hours a day, just like the next guy. But it seems like it’s never enough to do everything you want to do.
Don’t give up. Plenty of normal people become best-selling authors, record-breaking pilots, marathon runners, even billionaires with those same 24 hours.
We’ve got one of those people on our team – ready to share all the success secrets that got him to where he is today.
Meet him now and learn how he can help change your life.
- Charlie Byrne
Associate Publisher, Early to Rise
Word to the Wise: Lineament
"Lineament" (LIN-ee-uh-munt) – from the Latin for "line" – is a distinguishing or characteristic feature.
Example (as used by Anita Brookner in Visitors): "If she saw herself, even in her memory, she did not see the brightness that had been hers as a wife; she saw the lined and ageing woman she had become, as if these lineaments had been waiting to emerge since her features had first been formed."
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker ... build your self-confidence and intellect ... increase your attractiveness to others ... just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR's new Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2008
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Veggie washes, even the ones in the health food stores DO NOT get rid of what might hurt you. At a minimum you need GSE, or higher grades there of.
At a minimum veggies need to be soaked in ccleaning water for 6 mins – it’s amazing how much sand turns up at the bottom of the bowl even wwhen the produce has been “triple washed”.
Regards