Today's Feature Article

The 15 Secrets of Guerrilla Marketing

by Jay Conrad Levinson

These concepts are probably the reason that many start-up guerrillas now run highly successful companies. They are the cornerstone of guerrilla marketing, now the most popular marketing series in history, published in 37 languages, and required reading in many MBA programs worldwide. Just 15 words, but each one nuclear-powered and capable of propelling you into the land of your dreams.

1. COMMITMENT: You should know that a mediocre marketing program with commitment will always prove more profitable than a brilliant marketing program without commitment. Commitment makes it happen.

2. INVESTMENT: Marketing is not an expense, but an investment -- the best investment available in America today -- if you do it right. With the 15 secrets of guerrilla marketing to guide you, you'll be doing it right.

3. CONSISTENT: It takes a while for prospects to trust you and if you change your marketing, media, and identity, you' re hard to trust. Restraint is a great ally of the guerrilla. Repetition is another.

4. CONFIDENT: In a nationwide test to determine why people buy, price came in fifth, selection fourth, service third, quality second, and, in first place -- people said they patronize businesses in which they are confident.

5. PATIENT: Unless the person running your marketing is patient, it will be difficult to practice commitment, view marketing as an investment, be consistent, and make prospects confident. Patience is a guerrilla virtue.

6. ASSORTMENT: Guerrillas know that individual marketing weapons rarely work on their own. But marketing combinations do work. A wide assortment of marketing tools is required to woo and win customers.

7. CONVENIENT: People now know that time is not money, but is far more valuable than money. Respect this by being easy to do business with and running your company for the convenience of your customers, not yourself.

8. SUBSEQUENT: The real profits come after you've made the sale, in the form of repeat and referral business. Non- guerrillas think marketing ends when they've made the sale. Guerrillas know that's when marketing begins.

9. AMAZEMENT: There are elements of your business that you take for granted, but prospects would be amazed if they knew the details. Be sure all of your marketing always reflects that amazement. It's always there.

10. MEASUREMENT: You can actually double your profits by measuring the results of your marketing. Some weapons hit bulls-eyes. Others miss the target. Unless you measure, you won't know which is which.

11. INVOLVEMENT: This describes the relationship between you and your customers -- and it is a relationship. You prove your involvement by following up; they prove theirs by patronizing and recommending you.

12. DEPENDENT: The guerrilla's job is not to compete but to cooperate with other businesses. Market them in return for them marketing you. Set up tie-ins with others. Become dependent to market more and invest less.

13. ARMAMENT: Armament is defined as "the equipment necessary to wage and win battles." The armament of guerrillas is technology: computers, current software, cellphones, pagers, fax machines. If youðre technophobic, see a techno-shrink.

14. CONSENT: In an era of non-stop interruption marketing, the key to success is to first gain consent to receive your marketing materials, then market only to those who have given you that consent. Donðt waste money on people who don't give it to you.

15. AUGMENT: To succeed online, augment your website with offline promotion, constant maintenance of your site, participation in newsgroups and forums, email, chatroom attendance, posting articles, hosting conferences and rapid follow-up.

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Jay Conrad Levinson
http://www.gmarketingcoach.com

Today's Motivational Reading

“When you have a dream, nothing gets in your way. When you don’t have a dream, everything gets in your way.
(The Rags-to-Riches technique)
by Tom "Big Al" Schreiter

During our annual Thanksgiving networking cruise, I observed a good example of why some people are doomed for failure in network marketing.

I was standing in the buffet line. Two men were talking. This was their conversation:

Man #1: I can’t believe how quiet and peaceful it is today. It’s beautiful, just beautiful.

Man #2: Nothing is happening on this cruise. It’s boring. What a waste of time.

Man #1: Hey look! There are three different types of shrimp for appetizers.

Man #2: The food on this cruise isn’t nearly as good as my last vacation. I don’t know how they could serve this stuff.

Man #1: I think I’ll take three desserts with me on this trip in the buffet line.

Man #2: My room steward is rude and I don’t like the way he cleans up my room. And my shower water is too hot.

Man #1: I’m looking forward to the Las Vegas show tonight. Want to come with me? We can get front row seats if we go 15 minutes early.

Man #2: No way! The music is too loud and all that singing and dancing . . . I could watch that on television if I was interested.

Man #1: Let’s get some ice cream. It’s all you can eat!

Man #2: That stuff just makes you fat. I’ve tasted better ice cream at my local delicatessen.

Man #1: I just love cruising. It’s a great way to get away and relax.

Man #2: I’m homesick already. It’s boring. The bartender doesn’t smile at me. The sun is too hot. There are too many activities. Everyone is running around with an irritating smile on his face. You can’t get a decent newspaper and I don’t like the free movies they’re showing tonight. My travel agent charged me too much. The captain isn’t going where I want to go. The swimming pools make me wet . . .

I think you have the idea.

One man decided to be happy and enjoy the cruise. His “friend” decided to be unhappy. You could solve every problem for Man #2, but he would find new problems so that he could remain unhappy.

Sound familiar?

As my good friend Tom Paredes says:

“When you have a dream, nothing gets in your way. When you don’t have a dream, everything gets in your way.”

Many network marketing leaders spend hours, days, and even weeks trying to solve and eliminate problems and challenges for their distributors.

However, no matter how much they clear the road for success, a negative-minded distributor will still find yet another obstacle to throw in his way.

The leader’s efforts are wasted. The leader can’t win. And the leader must bite his lip, stand by the sidelines and watch his negative-minded distributor fail. That’s why many potential superstars fail. Their dreams are smaller than the obstacles they encounter.

This also explains those “rags-to-riches” stories. These “success stories” didn’t allow any obstacle to get in their way. Their dreams were far larger than the obstacles they encountered.

The lesson?

Your future leaders need a dream. If they don’t have a dream, you’ll be wasting your time helping them overcome the daily obstacles of business. Your assistance will always be needed.

Instead of trying to fix obstacles, help your future leaders create a dream.

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Tom "Big Al" Schreiter
http://www.fortunenow.com/

Subscribers' Corner

Working With Affiliate Programmes
by Robert Evans

Affiliate programmes are springing up everywhere and cover every type of product or service imaginable. Some incorporate fully automated systems that sell high volumes of hard products all over the world. Many have several thousand affiliates and one or two of the bigger companies have over one million affiliates.

So what are the advantages of joining an affiliate programme?

* they provide a ready-made business. This is a very big plus for those people who want to earn some kind of living off the internet but lack the knowledge or inclination to set up a business by themselves

* commissions and rewards are generally good and the more established programmes offer a real chance of advancement to higher and better-paid levels.

* other affiliates are usually on hand to offer practical support

How about the limitations?

* you are restricted in your promotional activities due to the fact that you do not actually own the affiliate site they give you. I'm thinking here about not being able to put such things as banners, images, links, meta tags etc onto your page

* the URL of your affiliate page is often either too long or contains such awkward things as question marks, which many Search Engines will not index

* any promotional literature provided has probably already been used by thousands of other people and consequently may have lost its impact, making it more difficult to achieve sales or referrals

* if the programme you have joined has not yet established itself (or in some cases even if it has) then you may encounter problems with payments owed to you not being honoured, or low quality products, or sub-standard statistics that do not accurately record how many referrals or sales you have made etc

* you may also be required to purchase a minimum quantity of the product on a regular basis before you start to qualify for commissions or even before you can become an affiliate

* you may not get the technical or affiliate support you might expect from the company. This may be due to inadequate staffing, or perhaps the company just doesn't care about you!

* other people in your downline do nothing to promote the programme

* the programme itself ceases to exist overnight

At least four of the above limitations can be overcome with a little time and effort. You could, for example, come up with fresher ads to promote the programme (provided this is allowed).

If the company supplies the email addresses of people in your downline then you could offer to help the less active members. Very often these people are passive not because they are lazy or apathetic but merely because they don't know HOW to promote effectively! Your guidance could mean the difference between no sales or referrals and healthy downlines and residual incomes.

As regards promoting your actual page, here are a couple of little tricks that should overcome a number of restrictions:

* get a redirect URL from http://www.cjb.net. While this will not help you to get listed on the major Search Engines, it will make your web page easier for prospects to remember and type into their browser's address bar.

* go to your affiliate page. Place your mouse pointer anywhere on the page and right click once. In the drop-down box choose "View Source". This will display the HTML for the page. Save this to your hard drive as a HTML document using the "Save As" function. Upload the page to your web site. If you don't have a web site then get some free web space from one of these:

Submit your 'new' page to the Search Engines. You are also now able to place banner codes, links, images, testimonials, in fact anything you want onto these pages, because you are in control of the HTML. A word of caution, though. Don't change the actual HTML of your original affiliate page. Just put the other stuff, like banners etc, around it.

Making this "mirror page" of your affiliate page will dramatically improve your advertising options.

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Robert Evans has been doing business online since October 2000. His latest project, the GET-IT-DONE! Action Plan, is a step by step marketing system, including over 20 original video tutorials. http://www.thecassiopeia.com/Market4Profit

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