APD-Marketing Newsletter

Hello and welcome to the February newsletter.

The nights are drawing out here in a very unleafy Hertfordshire and as I sat there looking at the sunset tonight, I wondered what to write about this month. A beautiful sunset indeed, and inspiration indeed…this month the Internet Marketing Guru industry gets it with both barrels!

You see I have been watching what’s been happening recently very closely indeed, and I have some very interesting observations. This is gonna be a hairy rollercoaster ride so hold tight!

Here goes.

First up, what a huge fanfare and who-ha about Twitollower, oh boy!

I watched the video and thought, yeak O.K, how much?

Then when I saw the “just $97 a month” I got really angry. This has to be the worst sort of rip off. I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but…if you pay $97 a month for this then more fool you .

Now I didn’t set out to be controversial here, but it annoys me for two reasons!

Firstly Lee and I only started to engage with Twitter back in the autumn. Lee being the technical one in the partnership did some research on follower automation and came up with Tweet Tank.

We had tried manual follower building and it was very time consuming and didn’t seem to be providing much in the way of results.

So, despite the fact it took a bit of working out, Lee implemented Tweet Tank on one of our Twitter accounts and we added over 2,000 followers in something like 5-6 weeks.

Pretty cool you’d think? And, we are still adding 10-20 followers each day, and we’re getting listed. Little tip here…if you do use automation to build followers, I think Twitter has sussed these programs. They don’t seem to mind you using them, but…they will work about four times better if you do a few “manual” tweets each day… I’ve done some testing on this!

Back to the story…I’ll be honest here because we might have missed something in our Twitter marketing as we haven’t looked at it in any great depth, but…we are still not making much from Twitter. (Oooo, honesty from an Internet Marketer!)

So, the second reason? Well, I am beginning to think Twitter has just become “noise”. Yes it’s O.K if you have a reputation or high profile and people already want to hear what you have to say, but I don’t think you can now use Twitter to build a reputation. You just get lost in the noise.

Ask yourself, how much attention do you pay to the thousands of tweets that you see each day? I rest my case.

I would be really interested to hear if anyone is making any decent money using Twitter, drop me a line. As I say, we may have this wrong, but…the fact remains, $97 /month on an ongoing basis versus a one time $27 payment, errr, it’s a no brainer!

So, that’s me off my soap box having got that off my chest!

Now, this whole Twitter thing got me thinking…watch out here comes some real heavy stuff!

Twitter has been hailed as the silver bullet by so many Guru’s over the last six months. It’s the new thing, it’s your saviour, you can build a list of thousands really quickly and make loads of money marketing on Twitter.

How long has Twitter been around?

Actually I don’t know the answer to that and I can’t be bothered to look it up. However, this got Lee and I chatting and we thought that maybe…just maybe there might be a recurring theme here.

New “thing” hits the street. A few savvy top-level marketers pick up “thing” play with it work out how to make bundles of cash using new “thing” techniques. They may even be “in the know” prior to “thing” happening.

So, they, being top level Gurus (with technical staff they can allocate to work out how “thing” works), take their “thing” technique to the BIG GURU weekend where they share with the top level Gurus.

All the top level Gurus implement and make a bundle of dosh.

All the top level Gurus then share the “thing” techniques with their top level mastermind groups (which are filled Tier 2 Gurus), so you now have Tier 1 and Tier 2 Gurus using the new “thing” techniques.

Then the Tier 2 Gurus implement and make some money, but the techniques are now starting to get a little bit wide spread and diluted. Some clever “non-Gurus” work it out.

Then the Tier 2 Gurus share with their own high ticket paying “students” who then go away and implement the “new” “thing” techniques.

By now the “new” techniques are starting to get really watered down, but…the top level Gurus can show amazing proof of concept and earnings…

…so, NOW (drum roll please), it’s time to roll the techniques up into a $1997 product!

So, the Tier 1 and 2 Gurus sell this package to their best “non student” customers and so the “thing” techniques scale down another tier.

Over the next six months or so a plethora of clone products flood the market at prices anywhere from $497 down to $47 and they achieve massive sales based on the huge proof of concept shown from when the technique was brand new and not being used by all and sundry. It’s not a fair cop!

Of course by now the technique is with the masses and is virtually useless. The masses however are rabid buyers of IM “how to” products.

Most who buy in this price range don’t even do anything with the product!

But the Gurus are happy because they ripped the technique for huge profits when it was new and then did the same when it was clearly past it’s “sell-by date” by selling it as a “how to” “silver bullet”.

Now you may think I’m being cynical here, and maybe I am, and maybe it’s not quite as clinical as that…but it does make you think and want to ask questions doesn’t it?

And…it was interesting to see Adeel and Booby launch Software Submitter this week. Now funnily enough Soctrates Socratous did a free video series on exactly this technique about 6 months ago.

So I tried it.

Admitedly I tried it on a hugely competitive keyword. Want to know my results?

O.K, are you sitting comfortably?

5 list signs ups in 3 months. Somewhat different to what Adeel and Bobby are spouting about. Although in all fairness and in the interests of complete transparency, I only submitted to one directory, they offer you twenty I think.

And do you know what has really upset me about this launch?

I purchased (with my own money) Mass Article Control (including an article submitter) from Adeel and Bobby, and there’s a full review of it at http://www.apdinternetmarketing.com/massarticlecontrol.html

And, it’s not a bad product, but…they are still promoting Mass Article Control - big time, yet, in the sales copy for Software Submitter, one of the major selling points is that article marketing is
dead!

I’m sorry, but that is just not acceptable. It’s wrong and it’s ripping people off.

No doubt I will get shredded by some of the Gurus for opening up like this, but…Lee and I (notice I drag Lee into this) are determined to stand firm…

…and that’s why we launched Internet Marketing Strategic last week.

If you don’t know what it is yet, it’s simply a FREE Internet Marketing Training Membership site.

So far training on Cpanel, SEO, Market Research and Affiliate Marketing  is included as well as a stack of eBooks on similar subject matter. We will be adding more training each month so do get signed up and do keep a close eye for new additions.

Lee and I have also revamped the main site and moved it to http://www.apdinternetmarketing.com

We have taken away a load of the crap and made the site a simple link to all of our products and a simply structured IM product review site.

Again keep watching for new reviews all of the time.

All of the old APD free stuff will soon find a home within Internet Marketing Strategic.

Final word, Lee and I are determined to bring a new freshness and clarity to the Internet Marketing world. It’s about time someone told the truth and stopped the rip off of the uninformed. By massively raising the “free bar”, we hope we have given that process a massive boost…thanks to Armand Morin for the idea!

Why do we want to risk the wrath of the Gurus?

It’s simple…the Internet is BIG enough for everyone. There is room for you, me, the Gurus and most of the population of the world…it’s huge. This rip off doesn’t need to happen, so we are going to do our best to remove the smoke and mirrors and bring transparency.

I hope you’ll join us on our crusade!

Peace and happiness…and lots of fun for all!

Until Next Month - Cheers now.