Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

One Stop Web Support Newsletter #53 On the Way
The latest issue of One Stop Web Support Newsletter is scheduled to arrive Sunday, April 8, 2007.

This newsletter contains:

• A Primer on Finding Products
• Reviews -
  Website business - How to Find Wholesale Products to Sell Online Video Tutorial
  Auction business - Garage Sale Strategies for eBay Success
• Special guest corner - thoughts from top marketers
  What Should I Sell Online? -- Ideas for Choosing Product Lines
  By Chris Malta
• Success quote by Albert Einstein

If you haven't signed up for my newsletter, you can do so at www.onestopwebsupport.com/newsletter-signup.htm. And I'll make it worth your while if you do. I'll give you $250 worth of free gifts for signing up!
Jeff

Labels: newsletter, product sourcing

Hottest Offers for April 6
Each Friday I share with you the hottest online marketing deals I've come across in the past week.

$7 Report Secrets
What's a quicker way to create a saleable ebook than creating a full ebook and ten times as viral?

I just came across a hot new way to create a paying digital product. The idea behind it is pretty ingenious and it has a powerful viral component that can extend the reach of your product far beyond what you could do on your own.

And, in many cases, you may already have enough content available to you to create a product in next to no time at all. Click here to find out more


$7 Offer Site
In case you're skeptical whether the $7 Report Secrets idea I described above will catch on, here's proof. Catalog sites are already popping up specifically set up to sell these low-cost, highly specific reports.

Here's the most popular one. It's set up to be compatible with the scripts that have the capability built in to allow affiliates to promote the reports without lengthy signup and to collect their money the instant they make a sale. Click here to find out more


Those are my picks for this week.

You can still check out some of the top offers that are still available from previous weeks. Check it out for some exceptional bargains that cost next to nothing.
Jeff

Labels: ebooks, hot offers, infoproducts

A Post I Wish I Had Written
Ever run across a post that completely sums up what you feel?

I just found one that I wish I had written myself.

It's about the thinking errors that stall your business and I recognized a lot of thinking errors I've had to overcome in what the writer wrote.

I highly recommend you take a look at it.
Jeff

Labels: goals, mindset, motivation, successful business

The Power of Personality
I was on the road yesterday.

It was a familiar road through the heart of Minnesota apple-growing country.

Many big barns along the route have been converted into comfortable and trendy seasonal farmer's markets. I spotted all the familiar signs along the way.

But there's only one of them that I have a real urge to stop at someday. And yesterday I realized why.

While all the other markets nail a big CLOSED sign over their signs as soon as the growing season ends, this one does something different.

They use their main sign to communicate with their customers. Each time I travel that route, I see something different on their sign. This time it said, "We're just finishing our pruning for the next summer."

And I realized the effect that small effort to communicate has on me. I've always wanted to drop in on that store during the season. I believe it's because I feel like I know that place.

Each time I pass, I learn a little bit more about what goes into running an apple orchard. Each time I feel like I'm getting to know the people behind it. Each time I sense the passion those people have for their orchard. And I feel like I'd enjoy their market. Just from the way they use their sign.

People are hungry for communication. Your potential customers are hungry for communication. Give them a sense of the passion you want to share with them and you'll get their attention.

Because that sense of passion and that willingness to simply communicate is so rarely seen.
Jeff

Labels: building relationships, copywriting, marketing

AdSense RIP - Hello, $7 Reports
I just stripped the last AdSense ads from this blog. I never had been thrilled with their relevance, but lately they had gotten almost comically irrelevant.

My experiment with AdSense shows that it simply is not something to slap up haphazardly.

I know blogs that use it and make money with it. But they are usually blogs that focus pretty tightly on a specific topic and do so because that topic has high-paying AdSense ads.

Every post is carefully calculated to trigger specific AdSense keywords.

I'm not interested in basing this blog around what's hot in AdSense.

I like to cover a broad range of marketing topics, and to cover them from some pretty odd angles. Unfortunately, that makes AdSense go cuckoo.

Rather than continuing to have ads for chicken ranching or some other totally irrelevant topics appear on this blog, I've decided to add some inexpensive reports that at least deal with Internet marketing.

They're a new twist on ebooks -- shorter, more to the point, less worried about padding the length in order to justify high prices.

These are quick reads for prices that won't cost much more than your daily dose of expresso.

Check them out as they rotate through the blog. I'll let you know a little more about this new wrinkle in the ebook world when I do my hot offers feature on Friday.
Jeff

Labels: AdSense, ebooks, reports

New Feature - Monday Video - SiteBuildIt! Rap
It's time to start Mondays off with a smile.

You may have heard me talk in the past about the growing importance of video in Internet marketing. You've heard me draw attention to the fantastic examples of video marketing that SiteBuildIt! users are producing. And you've heard me reveal the benefits of SBI! itself.

I decided it was time to show you some examples of effective video marketing. So this will be the first in a weekly series of videos that other SiteBuildIt! owners have done about SBI!

Some will be funny, some will be touching. But I hope they will bring you a smile to your Monday.

This first one is a special favorite of mine. Notice how effectively it uses whimsical humor to connect with viewers...

Note: I have had to move the videos from my Monday Video series to pages on my website because of recurring technical problems from having them in my blog.

See this video and the full tip.

Or see the whole series of video critiques.
Jeff

Labels: site building, SiteBuildIt, video

Jeff's Unfortunate Brush With Sanjaya Fever - Part II
Yesterday, I revealed the marketing lesson that American Idol contestant Sanjaya was unknowingly teaching.

What is that lesson? He chose to stand out from other contestants instead of blending in. The results have been dramatic with him developing a loyal fan base that keeps him on the show while more talented singers are voted off.

But I told you that that's not the only marketing lesson his presence provides. There's an equally valuable lesson you can learn from the way the American Idol producers exploit his dare-to-be-different persona.

The producers recognize that great marketing truth that controversy can sell, too.

From what I've read (which is really all I care to know about American Idol), Sanjaya is a mediocre singer who has managed to keep in the running because of the unconventional persona he displays.

AI purists decry his continued presence . But a solid block of preteen girls who see him as the ultimate heartthrob manage to give him enough votes to keep him alive week after week.

So what do the producers do? A week ago, they focused for an inordinate amount of time on an 11-year-old audience member as she cried her way through watching Sanjaya sing.

Word has it that the girl in question cried through just about every song that night. She simply was happy to be there and had her waterworks in overdrive the entire night.

But when did the producers focus the camera on her? That's right. Only when Sanjaya sang.

But the results were predictable.

The next day, AI purists were outraged. They accused the producers of stacking the results. They used it as proof that preteen girls were turning the show into a contest to pick the next hot poster boy for lovesick preteenies. They blamed Sanjaya for global warming. Well, they didn't go quite that far.

But their outrage generated a lot of press. Enough press that even a couldn't-care-less-about-AI curmudgeon like me ended up reading about it. My curiosity eventually got the best of me because I ran into the controversy everywhere I looked.

No, they didn't pique my interest in it enough to get me to watch. But I'm sure this pseudo-controversy will add lots of curious non-AI watchers to the next shows to see what everybody's talking about.

What interests me, though, is the excellent example this represents of how controversy can generate attention for your business.

I don't know if AI producers plotted this controversy from the start and I don't care. But once it started, they have nurtured it carefully to keep it growing. And they have reaped massive benefits from it in the form of free publicity.

You don't always want to steer clear of controversy in your business. A carefully managed controversy can bring you plenty of free—and valuable—attention.
Jeff


P.S. I hope to make this my last blog on either American Idol or Sanjaya. But I'm not promising anything. If they do something marketers can learn from, I'll let you know.

But make sure you keep checking back for marketing lessons that come from all sorts of odd angles you never hear anywhere else.

And if you haven't already done so, check out my newsletter on marketing tips and tools. I'll give you $250 worth of bonuses for signing up for my free newsletter.

Why so much? There's a marketing lesson in why I do that, too. Check the newsletter signup page to find out what that lesson is.

Labels: American Idol, online business, promote business, Sanjaya