APD-Marketing Newsletter

Hello and welcome to the first edition ofthe APD newsletter in 2009! Happy new year.

I’m sorry it’s a bit late this month… I have been snow bound in Vancouver– yes that’s right… snowbound.We went over to Canada for Christmas and landed in a blizzard (not recommended) and left many, many hours delayed with deep snow still on the ground.

Vancouver had 104cm (I think that’s about 3 and a half feet!) of snow while we were there when they norm ally only manage 48cm in an entire average winter.

Of course all of this bad weather played havoc with the flights,and once something goes wrong the knock on effect is devastating… ask British Airways.

W e had a nightmare journey hom e and ended up being awake for39 hours straight.

Now I know why sleep depravation is used as a method of torture!I have only just regained my senses! It was a surreal experience!
And, to cap it all just when you think BA really should do everything possible to make their customers happy after such a huge delay… they left us standing in baggage reclaim for45 minutes without telling us where our bags were… when, you’ve guessed it,they had been enjoying the ride on belt 11 for 30 minutes.

Nice as T5 is, I really just wanted to get home by this time!

This is not how to deal with customer service! Needless to say, BA probably got 50%  more complaints than they would have got without this “final straw”.

M oving on… this month will probably be the last “formal”  monthly newsletter as APD moves to a more “flexible” method of information delivery.

The new website is very nearly finished and the best way I can describe it is that it is like an “online newspaper”.

Alison, Lee and I will be making sure the information contained on the site is a “living entity” which will be updated regularly, as I said last month, hopefully on almost a daily basis.

The newsletter will become blog-based and you will just get a quick mail directing you to the blog when a new post is made. Blogging really does make the entire operation much easier to manage, so I envisage blog content (newsletters) on a far more frequent basis.

The whole ethos will be to get hot and profitable information to you far, far quicker than currently. That has to be good for both you and me.

The new form at will allow me to get better information, better product reviews and news to you faster than before and will make sure that all you need to do to ensure you are fully up todate in the IM world is to be subscribed here. Easy,eh?

O .K, so for the final formal newsletter, I’m going to talk about money not being a problem !

What? M oney’s notthe problem ?

Not a phrase one hears very often, is it? Particularly in these allegedly dark recessionary days.

In fact, I can remember back to my own dark days when there genuinely was too much month at the end of the money and life as a wage slave seemed a never-ending drudge.

Money very definitely was a problem when I got my first mortgage!

However, I’m not talking about life in general here. I’m talking about in business, and the point I’m getting at is that in most cases… money isn’t the problem when starting up your business.

Now, if you’ve hankered after your own business or tried and failed to get started,you will know what the problem is.

I’ll give you three guesses, but I think you’ll only need one.

Got it?

Yep, correct, the idea is the problem .

I read a quote from a guy called Ken Hakuta (he was the creator of some wacky products in the 80’s) and quite simply it was this,

“Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea IS an obstacle.”

This is so true.

I hear from loads of people who all want to get their slice of the e-business pie (and believe me it is a big, big, profitable pie, so why not?), but they all lack this one critical ingredient.

The bottom line is thatyou don’tneed to spend an awful lot of money marketing on the Internet if you’re prepared to put the bulk of the work in yourself. But… .how do you get started without an idea /product/service?

W ell, the first thing to do is to take a step back and consider some key points. Now this has to be done seriously, or it won’t work. And you HAVE to be committed to doing this, or again it won’t work. I hate wasting time, so should you!

So, take that step back, get yourself a pen and paper and start to jot down some thoughts on the following questions:-
1. What are you interested in?
2. What are you passionate about?
3. What topic(s) do you have in depth knowledge about?
4. What do people come to you for advice on?
5. What do you find easy (that others find difficult)?

It is vitally important that you take your time on this and fully consider the implications.

However, what I would say is that many of the greatest successes I know of come when people pursue something that they are passionate about.
Friends Reunited is a prime example of people with a passion making a profitable business out of it.

How much did this site sell for last year?

Think of YouTube, why did Google spend over$1 billion buying YouTube?
Of course, the best side effect of doing it this way is that it doesn’t feel like work, it will be fun.

I think the last statistic I read on this (back when I was in recruitment) was that less than 5% ofpeople enjoy their work.

How sad is that?

Now I have heard it said that this can lead to some obscure ideas and highly specialized products. If that’s what it leads you to, don’t worry.

The Internet is ideal for marketing to niches. Indeed, your marketing costs will be much lower if you only have to target one specialized market. Adwords costs are likely to be much less for a start if you go after one small, specialized niche. It just gets better, doesn’t it?

Anyway, moving on, just one more little tip before I close.

Did you know that most successful entrepreneurs get their business ideas from studying niche markets and then developing a product or service that solves a common problem or need.

You know it makes sense.

This is a beautiful model simply because people will already be actively looking for what you are going to develop.You will already have identified the market and therefore will be able to focus your efforts  “laserlike” on those people most likely to buy from you! O nce you do this, I
guarantee, money will no longer be a problem for you either!

Now, having said all of that, I have given a fairly simplistic overview here. I mentioned last month that I am developing a major new all encompassing Internet Marketing product with Lee Brooker.

I have just finished another part of the course this week and it is an in-depth niche research and product idea development lesson. I’m rather proud of it and if you get your hands on it I am confident you will NEVER struggle for product ideas again!

Lee and I are now just over halfway through so we’ll be out to you later in January with the pre-launch,which you’ll want to make sure you get registered for.

W e’re going to be giving away loads of a azing info just for registering.

The pre-launch info will be just a small taster of what will actually be contained in the product itself.

This really will be a “no fail” option… just what this market needs to blow away the smoke and mirrors!

So, keep your eyes open, it’s coming… soon!

And, just before I finish this last “official” newsletter, some food for thought. I read today (in the London Telegraph) that retail sales were very poor during December and that 2008 will go down as a very bad year all round.

What they also reported, tucked away in a little corner, was that sales online were up 30% in 2008.

I have a friend who works for a major clothes retailer here in the UK, he told me shop sales were down 6% but that online sales were up 12% .

The message is clear. Online is the place to be in 2009.

And, finally, finally, we are in recession, big time. I’m old enough and ugly enough to admit I called this slightly wrong. Even having spent 15 years supplying into the City and with the inside contacts I have, I totally underestimated the magnitude of the current situation.

It is bad, very bad. But… the place that is bucking all the rapidly escalating downward trends in online.

I rest my case!

If you haven’t already seen it and want to know how close we came to meltdown, watch the
December 23rd issue of Panoram a… here’s the link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/program m es/b00gbds9

This is the BBC iPlayerlink, so Idon’t think you’ll be able to watch outside of Europe (or more than a month after publication), but try
anyway, it’s certainly worth it if iPlayer does let you watch.

O .K, that’s it for this month. Hopefully we will be blog-based by the time I next mail you about the newsletter!

Have a fantastic and hugely prosperous 2009.

As always… to *YO UR*success.

Cheers now…and, have fun!
Derek

www.apd-marketing.co.uk

Internet Marketing from APD

Turn Time Into Money
If you fell anyone else would benefit from this information, please feel free to pass it on

Welcome to the February 2008 edition of the APD newsletter.

Well, what an interesting month it has been! The markets have been on a rollercoaster
ride (I’d hate to be a trader right now) and everyone is now running scared of the big
“R” word!

It is now more important than ever that you heed the messages I’ve been giving you
these last few months and make sure you ride the waves to personal profit. I won’t
repeat those messages, but what I will give you are some great business
“differentiators” this month. Ideas that will help you stand out from the crowd no
matter what business you are in.

So, without further ado, let’s get going, there’s a lot to cover.

The first thing I want to impart to you is something that is really very simple and is
something that I will be implementing in my business this coming month.

I was watching a video on a sales page of a diet and detox product this week. Nothing
special you say, quite a few people do this now. This particular video was actually
very powerful and made me really look into the product very deeply. OK, I am trying
(not very successfully if you’ve read my blog) to lose some weight and get a bit fitter
myself. So, I did have a vested interest.

However, the point is this, the video made me stay on a site I would otherwise have
left…and it made me buy the product in the end.

That got me thinking!

So, I did some research and this is what I found out…putting video on your sales page
can increase sales…massively.

Now the percentage varies depending on what you read, but it’s anywhere from 30 –
250%.

So, as the big “R” digs in its claws, this would appear to be an excellent way to
differentiate your site and to increase sales. As I said, I will be implementing some
video very soon, and I’ll be making sure I keep a close eye on the results. I’ll report
back in due course.

The second differentiator is one that I do use. Ask your customers what they want.

It’s all too easy to get stuck in your own little world, particularly if you run a small /
Internet business from home.

The best, most successful business people are constantly asking their customers for
feedback, ideas and what else they can offer.

This is just a sensible, good business discipline, but out of all the sites I subscribe to,
very few actually do this. Funnily enough, this again happened to me this week. And guess what?

I responded to give feedback and the person concerned (who will be reading this) came back to
me and said: “Great idea, I’ll do it.”

Who wins?

We both do. He has a couple of ideas for new offerings to his customers and I get
some cool information that I’ve been after for a while.

One of the common themes in questions I get asked is: “How do I find new product
ideas? ” Well, what better way than to ask people what they want from you. This is so
powerful and is a much overlooked technique.

Another way of increasing business is to become invaluable to people. There are a
couple of ways of doing this.

Firstly if you are an authority on your subject the advice and information you give,
provided it is good and profitable for your customers, will make you invaluable. This
is especially so if it is new, detailed or cutting edge information. Your customers will
refer you to other potential customers and word of mouth will become a powerful
weapon for you.

The other way to make yourself invaluable is once you have customers paying you for
a product or service, is to offer them something else (maybe free), that locks them into
your main product line.

You will need to have a repeat or residual income model for this to work. If you do,
then if you offer something of real value (for free) that is taken away if the customer
subsequently decides to stop receiving your main product, you have a very powerful
method of making yourself invaluable.

So, for example, if you have paid for a monthly newsletter, you might offer free
access to your online archive for as long as they subscribe. This is another very
powerful and easy to implement method to keep you ahead of the competition.

Finally, invest in yourself! This is a really interesting one. I’ve championed the “you
should never stop learning” ticket in the past. For my money, the second you stop
learning is the second you start to die…at least mentally. You should always be
looking to push your boundaries, get out of your comfort zone.

If you do this, interesting things will happen…and here’s an example.

This last month or so, I’ve been learning Adsense. I made three really quick pages as
an addendum to my diet and detox blog (please…don’t ask, I need to get properly
committed, yes…I  know, here am I waxing on at you).

Anyway, very simple pages, here’s an example…

www.apd-marketing.co.uk/hoodia.htm

I took a blank Frontpage document, coloured it blue. Inserted a table (one cell) with a
white background and sized it as I wanted. I found a few relevant articles on the
Internet, did about 10 minutes further research and mixed and matched to come up
with my own article which I wrote in about 30 minutes.

I added one 468 x 60 AdSense module and hey presto…I had my first AdSense site.
It’s made me $2! Don’t laugh…I’ve made money using AdSense which is more than
95% of people do! And it wasn’t difficult.

It took me about three hours to go through the tutorials, learn what I needed to learn
and get a basic site up.

OK, I know, what’s so good about all of this?

Here’s what’s good. I took my new knowledge and merged it with some old knowledge and came up with an 80 page AdSense website.

Most of you know I worked in recruitment for 20 years. In 1997 I wrote a book about
how to get a job. In fact, Chapter 2 of the book is available on the APD Free Stuff
page as a free download. It’s about deciding what you want from life, so I thought it
would be useful.

Anyway, I purchased some AdSense templates from one Cody Moya.

I had a look through and picked one I liked. I then dropped the book into the template
on 80 separate pages, dropped in the Adsense code and I have an 80-page website.

It took me roughly three complete days to get it 100% right. Not bad for a first
attempt.

It will be live, hopefully, early next week. You can see a sample page at…

www.love-ur-job.com

(Edit 2009, the site went live in early March 2008)

Now, if each page on this site makes me $2 / month, that is $160 / month every month
for…ever. For just three days work. As it happens, the hoodia page just has the one
AdSense module, while the Get A Job pages each have four. Now I don’t expect I’ll
get four times the income because of the extra modules, but maybe twice. So…that
makes it $320 /month, now that’s a bit better!

As I know many agencies I’ll be mailing them all offering this as a free resource, so
hundreds, maybe thousands of agencies, will be linking to the site, so, say that
doubles income as well…Hey, $640 /month. Now we’re talking!

So, as you can see, investing in yourself can pay good dividends. How would you like
to increase your income by over $500 per month in a so-called recession?OK, that’s it for today. I hope you agree, a very powerful newsletter this month, with
plenty of food for thought.

As always, please feel free to email me with your thoughts, ideas or with anything
you’d like to know about. I always answer all of my emails.

Until next month, get out there and do something…for yourself.

If it’s to be…it’s up to me, it’s people like you that can make the money to help keep
the economy afloat! Go for it!

As always…to *YOUR* success

Cheers now…and remember - have fun!

Derek

Internet Marketing from APD

Learn to Copywrite

How Lucky Are You?

Hello again, and welcome to this month’s newsletter. Well, I can’t believe we are now
into September and it has suddenly become very noticeable that the nights are
drawing in. The football season is now well under way and it won’t be long before the
first frost arrives!

I love the autumn though. I wake up on a cold autumn morning and look in wonder at
the bright blue sky. I love the way the yellow, orange and red leaves contrast with the
sky’s blue, I love the way the low sun shines on the shimmering leaves. On mornings
such as this I genuinely think: “How lucky I am to be alive”!

So, how lucky are you? No, not just to be alive…but in life generally.

Whilst you know I like to ask tough questions, I reckon this is a tad easier! I’m
willing to bet you will have a good idea of how lucky you are. Where would you rate
yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the luckiest)?

I was going to talk about looking for product ideas this month, and amazingly (or
should I say luckily) I saw an article on the TV that brought these two subjects
together. Another lucky coincidence was that I’d read an old article from about four
years ago that connected the two subjects as well. So, I thought, as I’d been lucky, I’d
give you my take on this.

Now before I go into this in more detail, the need for product ideas is the one thing
that holds so many people back. It is something I get asked about constantly and it
appears to be an age-old problem. What to sell? How do I get ideas for products?

To be honest this doesn’t need to be a problem!

Anyway, back to the article I saw on TV. This is what happened.

A scientist was walking around Covent Garden with a copy of a magazine and he was
asking people to look through the magazine and count the pictures. He put them under
a time constraint and…if they got the right answer within the time allowed, the
“contestant” won a fiver.

So, people would rush off and count the pictures. Out of 14 people who took the trial
only two won the fiver. There were 77 pictures. OK, difficult to flick through a
magazine and count that many pictures in 60 seconds – very difficult indeed.

However, before he asked people to take this little test, he asked how lucky they were.

Here’s the amazing bit, the two people who thought they were the luckiest were the
two people who won the fiver.

And…even more amazingly, neither of them counted all of the pictures!

OK, I know you’re now thinking this was some sort of trick here…and it sort of was!
About ten pages in, on the left hand side, was a page that simply said in big bold black
letters on a plain white background: “Stop counting, there are 77 pictures”. As it
happens, neither of the winners saw this page (obviously none of the losers did
either).

However, just over half way through there was another page that said. “Stop counting,
tell the tester you’ve seen this page and you have won the £5”. The two “lucky”
people saw this page and claimed their fiver.

So, what’s the point?

Simply this. The scientist stated that there had been many studies conducted and it has
been “probably” proved that lucky people are simply more observant of their
surroundings and the opportunities presented to them.

Now this is a bit of an “ethereal” area, but this little experiment does sort of prove the
point.

I remember from the past an old saying that ”you make your own luck” and that luck
is simply “Labouring Under Correct Knowledge”…and this again, is “sort” of true.

So, if you’re looking for products to sell and build your business with…how
observant (lucky) are you?

How often do you go to forums on-line and look for problems people are
experiencing? A problem solved is a profitable product!

How often do you read about problems in the paper and think about how to solve it? Do you read the business pages to see what is going on?

How often do you get frustrated with a product and say “if only it did this or that”? How often do you wish for a certain service or product?

What are your areas of expertise and what problems are you able to solve? Are these
problems lots of other people have as well? All you need to do to find a forum is go
on to Google and type forum + subject. Read the forums, most of them have an FAQ
section, could this be made into a product? Go try!

There are forums on every topic under the sun and there is sure to be at least one in
your area of either interest or expertise, so see what people are saying there. What can
you deliver to the members in return for profit? It’s certainly easier to build a product
if it’s a subject you know intimately.

So, another difficult question for you…how often do you think you have passed a
product idea by during your lifetime? Ouch! That one hurt. Indeed, it hurt me when I
re-read that old article I mentioned earlier.

I totally missed the relevance of this first time round, but…it referred to the first series
of Dragon’s Den. I’ve dipped into the program occasionally, but the point is this.
Dragon’s Den is full of people presenting business ideas to a panel of wealthy
entrepreneurs each week. What better way to fill your head with product ideas?

I have to admit I can’t believe this one actually passed me by! Each week most of the
presentations get rejected, but…a different slant, an enhancement, a more efficient
version, a version for a different market? I’ve just watched it for pure entertainment,
when I could have been trawling it for profitable product ideas – derrr!

So, how about another slant? What about when you go abroad for your holidays?
Three years ago in Vancouver I saw this amazing gadget that throws a ball for a dog
to chase. It’s a sort of sling that launches the ball a very long way and also picks up
the ball. This means that the dog gets great exercise and the owner doesn’t have to
pick up the ball covered in nasty saliva with their hands.

Guess what? I’ve started to see them over here now. I must admit, I thought it was a
good idea when I first saw it. However, someone saw the thing, thought it was a good
idea and DID something with it and imported the product into the UK. I expect that
person is doing rather well.

There are just so many ideas and products out there just waiting for YOU.

So, why do so many people seem to have this “shell” around them that stops them
“seeing” these things?

I’m not sure, maybe it’s the pace of life these days, but…I have decided that I should take more time over things and just generally, look at things much more carefully. I think this will prove to be a very good discipline regardless, but I’m sure if I persist I will generate some great new ideas for products and / or services.

Maybe I might just get lucky! Maybe you might too!

One thing is for sure, you can sell pretty much anything over the internet these days.
The cost of building a web site is coming down day by day as are all the other costs
involved, particularly eCommerce solutions.

So…you have no excuse for not getting out there and building your own success.
Ideas are simply everywhere, you just have to cultivate the right mindset to be able to
“see” all of that opportunity.

On a totally different subject, following on from my note to you about Adwords
Excellence, I’ve spoken to Stewart at AE today and had a look at the number of
people who took up my referral. It’s really low! I can’t believe that! Did you not look
at it properly??

If you want to make a success of marketing on-line learning how to get the best from
Google Adwords is absolutely essential. I guarantee, if you don’t get your Adwords
campaigns right, you will lose money. Stewart is the undisputed king of Adwords in
the UK.

I cannot recommend this service highly enough and, still, for just a short time longer,
you can sign up FREE. Yes, for no cost. You CAN learn everything you need to
become successful with Adwords for no cost to yourself. If you are serious about
marketing online you just cannot afford to turn this chance down.
So, once again, here is the link…

Editors Note 2009 - sadly the AWE service left the internet in late 2008. A sad loss!

Without wishing to be rude…do yourself a favour and get into this.

So, with autumn nearly upon us and the winter months to follow, this is the ideal time
to spend those dark winter nights getting lucky. Open your eyes to the possibilities
and come next spring I reckon you could be on the path to freedom. What a great
word – freedom.

I’ll be launching further products to help you achieve just that in September. The
Total Control system is now ready and the website is being developed. This will help
you unlock the secrets of how the money power giants do what they do (make buckets
of money).

And I have a referral to an incredible product for you in the next few days. This one
will come with products ready made in it, so you won’t even have to worry about
finding or developing the products! How easy do you want this??

On that positive note, I shall bid you farewell. Any questions, comments or just plain
insults, please feel free to email me, and I’ll try and get back to you as soon as I can.

As always…to *YOUR* success

Cheers now and…have fun.

Derek

Internet Marketing from APD

How To Find Great information Product Ideas