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The MarketingSecrets.com Newsletter
Tuesday, March 11, 2003

Advanced Internet Marketing
Strategies, Techniques, And Ideas

From The Wacky Mind Of John Reese
=========================================

CONTENTS:

1. The First Issue!
2. The Biggest Marketing Mistake
3. Live WebCast Tonight

-----------------------------------------
The First Issue!
By John Reese

Welcome to the very first issue of the
MarketingSecrets.com Newsletter!

Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter.

Especially since you have no idea what's in
store for you. :)

Just to tell you a little bit about this
newsletter and what you can expect...

This newsletter will contain a wealth of
knowledge about Internet Marketing from
me based on my over 14 years of online
marketing experience.

This newsletter has only ONE purpose...

TO HELP YOU MAKE MORE MONEY.

PERIOD. Yep, that's it. 

To help you and your business make more money. 
If you were expecting something else, I'm sorry
to disappoint you. :)

This newsletter will not be published on any
set schedule. When I have something valuable to
share with you I will. I will not just publish
this newsletter just to "send something to you"
on a regular basis.

Sometimes you may receive a few messages from me
that are only a few days apart, and other times
I may not publish an issue for several weeks.

I don't want to waste YOUR TIME. So I will
only send out a newsletter when it contains
something that I feel is absolutely beneficial
to you.

I *WILL* from time to time tell you about
products, services, and events that will
benefit your business. I will never recommend
anything that I don't personally own or have
used. 

In other words, I will never mention
CRAP in this newsletter. :)

In full disclosure, many of these recommendations
will be affiliate links where I will earn a
commission if you go and make a purchase.

I hope you *DO* go and purchase everything I
suggest. After all, my Porsche 911 Turbo goes
through gas like crazy. :)

But seriously, my promise to you is that I am
here for one purpose and one purpose only --
to help you make more money. And this includes
only recommending things that will HELP you, not
be a waste of your time or an insult to your
intelligence (like many Internet Marketing products
currently are.)

Also... there will be MANY typos, grammatical mistakes,
and flat-out silly ERRORS in this newsletter. My
focus is not on writing a literary work of art, it's
just to convey concepts and ideas for making you
more money. 

Is this starting to sound familiar?

OK, let's get started. Enjoy the ride. :)

-----------------------------------------
"The Single Biggest Marketing Mistake Online"
By John Reese

I have been marketing online since 1990.
Long before the Web came about. I have
been actively marketing on the Internet as
we know it today since 1994.

Yes, I'm an Internet Marketing old geezer.

I have pretty much tried it all and seen it
all online when it comes to marketing tactics.

Certainly, there are new strategies and tactics
being thought of and tested everyday, and that's
why I continue to buy new ebooks and teaching
products from others because you can never
know it all -- no matter how successful you are.

But the single biggest mistake I see online, and
have seen for many years, regardless of the
strategy being used, is one simple thing...

POOR TRACKING!

People often ask me...

"John, is there any ONE thing that you can
attribute your online success to?"

The answer is simple... TRACKING.

I am a tracking FREAK. I track everything.
And I mean EVERYTHING.

As my good friend Jonathan Mizel likes to say...

"As online marketers we are not in the 'marketing'
business we are in the MATH BUSINESS."

If you want to know the difference between
success and failure online it comes down to
one thing.

If you want to know the difference in making
10 dollars online or $10,000, it comes down
to one thing.

If you want to know if your hard work is not
going to waste, its comes down to one thing.

TRACKING.

I like to joke that the secret to being
successful in Internet Marketing is this
really complex "formula."

Then I go on to explain this exact formula...

When we do things online, such as our marketing
tests, site changes, place ads, buy clicks, do
a JV, whatever, one of TWO things happen
EVERY TIME. 

Yes, only one of two things happen.

1. THEY MAKE US MONEY
2. THEY LOSE US MONEY

Amazing rocket science isn't it?

The fact of the matter is Internet Marketing
is EASY. It's an absolute JOKE to make money
when you have the basic fundamentals down, and
that you TRACK your efforts.

The tracking results will tell you what
works and what doesn't. Then it's EASY...

YOU KEEP DOING WHAT WORKS AND STOP DOING
WHAT DOESN'T!

In order to be extremely successful online
you must learn to track everything. You
must learn the value of tracking and get
used to doing it.

You make a change to a headline on your
site you must track it.

You test a different price you must track
it.

You use a different description on your
Web Site to get people to opt-in to your
list you must track it -- not just the
percentage of people that opted in, but
also the QUALITY of the people that opted
in. I.e. Are they buying or taking the
necessary ACTION you want for them to
take AFTER they have opted in?

Tracking can get very complicated and I
don't have the time to go into it all
right now. There really is a lot to it.
From what to track, to when, to for how
long, to why, etc.

Jimmy and I and working hard on writing
the curriculum for a Teleclass that we
will hold soon on Testing and Tracking.
It will cover EVERY STEP of EVERYTHING
you need to track (and in what order)
when rolling out a new project online,
or trying to make improvements to
an existing project.

* We will keep you posted on when the
dates will be for the teleclass.

The biggest tracking mistake people
make is lumping all of their TRAFFIC
SOURCES together when trying to determine
their conversion rates.

In other words, when someone is trying
to figure out how many people are buying
or taking a specific action when they visit
a site, they are taking their total
traffic numbers and doing the math
based on the total number of buyers
(or whatever the desired action was.)

BZZZZZZ THANKS FOR PLAYING.

Major mistake. Huge. Yet marketers are
doing it everyday. And ironically, it's
being done by some people that are making
a lot of money!

I know, because many of these people are
friends of mine and I've given them a hard
time about it. We laugh about it, but they
know it's true and they are working hard
to become better "trackers" as I hope
you will too.

(Don't worry I'm almost done with this article
and will stop rambling in a moment.)

The problem with not tracking traffic sources
(such as individual pay-per-click keywords,
link partners, search engine listings, JV
links, affiliate links, etc.) is this...

YOU CANNOT ACCURATELY DETERMINE WHAT IS
*WORKING* WHEN YOU TEST.

For example, if you run PPC campaigns for
multiple keywords (and if you track them
properly) you will find that some keywords
generate great conversion rates and sales.

Others will create sometimes NOTHING.

In fact, many will be losers. I.e. they don't
turn a profit. Yet many PPC advertisers
will continue to just lump all their PPC
traffic together, and as long as they are
making more than they are spending they
consider it a "Victory."

DUMB.

Tracking allows you to MAXIMIZE your efforts.
It allows you to SQUEEZE every last penny
of profit our of your marketing.

The other major pitfall with lumping all
of your traffic sources together is when
you go to make changes -- such as testing
prices, or different headlines, or new
bonus offers, or another guarantee, or
anything else.

If your traffic fluctuates on a given day
from a given traffic source (which it WILL)
your results will always be SKEWED.

Your conversion rates for a specific test
may in fact be HIGHER for that given day.
OH JOY!

But, guess what? If the traffic to your
site happened to fluctuate so more of it
happened to come that day from a source
that typically converts higher than the
rest of your traffic, it's very possible
that your "test" may have...

DECREASED YOUR CONVERSION.

That's right, DECREASED! But you'd never
know it because looking at your overall
traffic stats "appears" as if your
average daily conversion rate increased.

So what do you end up doing? You KEEP that
test because you think it is making
you more money.

99.999% of online marketers are making this
mistake. And people wonder why it can
be difficult to make money online.

Reason #1: Poor Tracking

We'll touch more on this topic in the near
future. I strongly believe it's the single
most importance element of Internet Marketing
success. 

I know for a fact I would not have made 10%
of what I have been blessed to have made from
marketing online if I wasn't a tracking freak.

I am going to teach YOU how to become a tracking
freak for your business. It's the ONLY thing
that matters when marketing online -- because
it tells us what works and what doesn't. There
is no guesswork.

-----------------------------------------
Live WebCast Tonight at 9:00PM EST

"Discover The Proven Formula To Making
$100,000+ A Year With Affiliate Programs"

Yes, this is very short notice and for that
I apologize. I have been SWAMPED with work
for several new projects recently and I have
barely had a chance to breathe.

My very close friend, Jason Potash, is
holding a WebCast event tonight (Tuesday,
March 11, 2003) at 9:00EST. You can
login and listen to streaming audio of the
event right on your computer -- no phone
number to call or anything.

In case you don't know Jason, he's the brilliant
creator of "EzineAnnouncer" a great piece of software
for promoting an Ezine. You can check that out
at http://www.ezineannouncer.com.

Jason is a fantastic marketer and he has recently
been putting together some awesome live "webcast"
events to allow several experts to get together
and teach all kinds of marketing strategies and tactics.

Tonight's live event is on Affiliate Marketing.
Even if you don't have a product yet of your own
to market online, I cannot urge you enough to
make this WebCast. It will really open your eyes
to the RIGHT WAY to make money with affiliate programs.

This event has some very special panelists. One of them
is one of my absolute favorite Internet Marketers...

ME! :)

Haha. But seriously, I plan on covering my highly-guarded formula
for creating affiliate income ON AUTO-PILOT through
the use of long autoresponder sequences. I have
successfully had many $100,000 MONTHS during the past
8 years that were due to affiliate programs.

Tonight I plan to spill the beans as to why everyone
promoting affiliate programs has been doing it WRONG.
I have never written or spoken about this ANYWHERE.
You will not want to miss it.

But aside from me there will be some other
great marketers on the WebCast sharing THEIR unique
methods for generating affiliate marketing income with
ease.

My good friend, Stephen Pierce, the author of
the awesome ebook, "The Whole Truth" will be on
the WebCast. He'll explain the simple methods
he uses EVERY MONTH to generate thousands a month
in affiliate marketing income like clockwork.

If you don't yet have a copy of Stephen's ebook,
I highly recommend it. It's the most talked about
product in Internet Marketing right now for a reason.
You can check it out at:
http://www.the-whole-truth.com

Also on the WebCast will be those crazy whiz kids
from NameStick.com. (They also have great services
at Nitromarketing.com and Nitrostats.com.)

It's none other than Matt Gill and Kevin Wilke.

Matt and Kevin continue to produce as one of the top
Super Affiliate teams around. They win affiliate contest
after contest. They recently earned over $5,000
from 4 hours of work promoting an affiliate program.

Tonight Matt and Kevin are going to share their
secrets as to EXACTLY how they do it.

And last but not least...

Uncle Frankie! Frank Garon.

Frank is a very dear friend of mine and a fantastic online
marketer. Here's a guy that's truly an "average Joe"
that has found success online. He went from driving
an 18-wheeler to making over $100K a year with affiliate
marketing. Frank tells it like it is, and on tonight's
WebCast he'll explain why he absolutely, positively,
believes ANYONE can do what he has done.

If you are marketing anything online you definitely
should be on this live WebCast tonight if you can make
it. No matter what your business model is, you are
crazy if you don't generate a significant portion
of your income from affiliate programs. Especially
when it's EASY to do and you can generate FREE income
even when visitors come to your site and DON'T buy
your products. (I'll teach you all about this tonight.)

Jason is only charging $39 for this thing which is
a JOKE. I guarantee that if you actually ACT on what
I will teach you in my presentation alone that you'll
make at least $39,000 in return. Not a bad return
on investment.

You can LISTEN right now to some streaming audio intros
for each of the panelists on the WebCast site. You can
also, of course, register for tonight's event there
as well. I hope you can make it. Sorry again for
announcing this at the last minute. Here's the URL:
http://www.marketingsecrets.com/livewebcast.html

-----------------------------------------

Well, I sincerely hope you enjoyed this first issue
my little newsletter. I hope you got something out of it.

I'll be in touch shortly with more ways to help
you make money from your business.

If you have any comments, suggestions, complaints,
feedback, etc. please feel free to contact me
and let me have it.

Take care and God bless.

~John