Internet Marketing Lesssons

April,

after responding to your request earlier, I got to thinking and remembered some interesting research I'd come across recently. It illustrated that many traditional offline marketing methods were just as effective, if not more effective at driving customers online.

I wrote a full post about it on my own blog Breakthrough Ecommerce here.

Hope it helps

Check out Catherine Seda's book, How to Win Sales and Influence Spiders.  This book will give you the basic understanding of concepts that you need as well as some advanced lessons.  I recommend the book to everyone as it has taught me a wealth of knowledge.  She also has a website at SedaCommunications.com  I am also in the process of setting up a book club on my website for people that would like to interact with others that share the common goal of gaining knowledge about internet marketing...I plan to use this as the first book to review for the bookclub.

Just keep at it - keep reading, keep testing and keep participating in sites like this one! I was in the same boat about 4 months ago and seemed really overwhelmed with all the information out there, my strategy was that if i kept reading it might just click one day and everything would make sense. Even though I am still waiting for that day, a lot of things make more sense now and I can grasp the concepts more easily. Basically, it is good just to surround yourself with people who know what they are talking about.

Start with Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg at Future Now. in New York.

They have a whole library of free articles going back nearly 10 years.

Buy their books, download their whitrepapers.

That should keep you busy for about, the rest of your life.

Before you start internet marketing, you should also bone up on marketing itself.

Read Ogilvy, Levinson, Silverman, ah the list goes ever on.

Just read everything, then do your own tests and see what works.

One more thing: With conversion rates stuck at 2% for over 90% of online sites, there is obviously no such thing as an internet marketing guru.

Ditto the below comment - there's no real GURU!

There are however a myriad of people who are on top of their game and can help out immensely.  A lot of it depends on your personal style and what style of reading you like too.

I just sat in on a forrester seminar on  trends in Social media marketing  that had i known about in avance i would have shared the link on here  -it was a great source of reference both for "Noobs" and more seasoned marketers. (I'd be happy to pass on the PDF of the slides)

As "silk" said - read EVERYTHING -adopt the parts that sound relevant to you and try them - see what works and what doesn't.  trial and error is still the #1 way to learn in my book.

Having a good foundation of the principles of marketing can't hurt either.  If by internet marketing you're focusing (like myself) on Social Media Marketing  -then the "4 P's" won't seem all that relevant - the "C's" will work more. (Consumer, Conversation, Content and ummmmm - i forget - someone?)

Oh - and develop a thick skin !  A large % of companies don't "get it" but want to - and educating from the inside out can be an important part of that marketing success - i learned the hard way that many of your coworkers (possibly even your boss) will think you're just goofing off or talking a lot of buzzwords - once you realize that fact  -you can go beyond it and start communicating your value.

Seems to me theres quite a few "noobs" (Myself included) in this community  -so with that in mind - i'm off to set up a Newbies group for us to talk more in and share stories.

Personally - reading Seth, Andybeal, CK, Logic and Emotion and more helps me daily!