Every one probably knows about the flip camera – the tiny ‘one-button’ camera that just plugs straight into your USB port.  Its popularity is based on the easy of use and small size.

I never bought one.  The reason is that I value audio and the flip does not have a line-in, which means you can’t use an external microphone.

Recently, kodak brought out a new camera to rival the flip – but this one has a line-in.  So, now I’m jumping in – and so should you.  It’s only a coupla hundred bucks for a small, high definition camera with awesome audio.  Check it out at amazon by clicking on the camera.

The new camera for video marketing is a post from: Internet Business Tribe | Online Business, Internet Marketing, Product Reviews, Coaching

I’ve snuck out of a session at World Internet Summit in Perth to quickly put this up for you.  The boyz here are running the Internet Challenge, which is a gutsy process to make a product and start a business over a 4 day period and the give one lucky attendee the proceeds.  It’s a cool way to demonstrate a number of the key things any one can do to start their own online business.  The product they’ve launched details a number of pretty savvy strategies for making money online – and it’s worth a look.

Now, I had to figure out how I was going to promote this product.  My main market is not in internet marketing, so I don’t have a huge list of people I can email the promotion to – since they’re not on my list to receive emails about ‘making money’.

So, if I don’t have a huge email list in this market, then I’m back to using other promotional means – and the two I’ve chosen are video and search engine optimization.

For video, I decided to turn the sales page into a video that I could distribute on the internet.  The first place I’m putting the video is here – check it out.

I think it’s a pretty cool video and the thing is that it was very easy to produce.  All I did was to take screen shots of the various parts of the sales page and them upload them to a site called ANIMOTO.  All you do in ANIMOTO is choose the images you want in your video, choose the music you want from their royalty free selection, and that’s it.  Simple.

Of course, when I distribute this video I’ll need to include a link to the actual website so that people are just one click away. You can visit the sales page here.

To find out more about ANIMOTO visit their site:

OK – that’s all for now – I’ve gotta get back downstairs for the rest of the event.

How to turn a sales page into a video is a post from: Internet Business Tribe | Online Business, Internet Marketing, Product Reviews, Coaching

Since starting out in internet marketing in August of 2008, I have explored many different income generating models – and I’ve spent my fair share of $$$ on courses – some good and some bad.  As a vigorous consumer of internet marketing products I am feeling pretty well equipped to make judgments about what’s good and what’s crap.  I’m only going to use this post to talk about what I have found to be the most profitable and sensible internet marketing strategy, and that’s the Fast Web Formula.

Fast Web Formula is a system of approaching online business that produces fast results while also building a business that is sustainable in the long term.  It is not about building a business on tactics that are here today and gone tomorrow.  The Fast Web Formula is so fundamental – so foundational – that it’s strategies will endure despite the rise and fall of junky-get-rich-quick tactics.

I do not promote many internet marketing products – or courses.  It’s not really my ‘thing’ online.  I’m too busy working on stuff in other markets.  Fast Web Formula by James Schramko is different.  It is the stand out opportunity to learn authentic and tested online business and marketing strategies from an internationally respected online business strategist.

I’ve included a 20 minute podcast for you to listen to here.  Know that it comes with my highest recommendation.

Fast Web Formula is a post from: Internet Business Tribe | Online Business, Internet Marketing, Product Reviews, Coaching

So I’m presenting the FastWebFormula at World Internet Summit in Perth and I’m sharing the stage with incredible speakers and internet marketers and I sat in to hear Mark Anastasi’s presentation on making millions using YouTube. It was the first time I’d heard Mark speak, and I gotta say, I was impressed with his presentation. I enjoyed it. He has a fantastic story. It’s inspiring and emotive. Here’s a guy who just six years ago was living in a squat in London and who now has businesses in multiple countries, travels the world and has hundreds if not thousands of students who he has helped to create an online business.

It caused me, again, to reflect on how I ended up in this surreal world of internet marketing and social media.  As I sat there listening to him, I began to feel quite emotional about my own story.  In particular, I felt a sense of gratitude to the person who really helped pull me through – and that’s James Schramko.  James, like Mark, is a relative new comer to Internet Marketing, but has risen to international notoriety as a genius business strategist over the last few years.  He is now at the point where seasoned internet marketers consult him for his expertise – and that’s because before internet marketing James was an incredibly successful general manager for an international prestige car company and he brings all that experience and knowledge to the online entrepreneur.

Now, when it comes to me – and an even newer new comer.  I’ve only been playing this game for the last 18 months, and in that time I’ve gone from complete newbie to stage presenter – and that can seem like a pretty meteoric rise.  But there’s always a story isn’t there.  I’m saving my story up for some other time.  But for the moment, I just wanted to applaud those who have taught and given me so much – and who like Mark and James are prepared to take massive action to get what they want out of life.

World Internet Summit is a post from: Internet Business Tribe | Online Business, Internet Marketing, Product Reviews, Coaching

So, one of the great things about the internet is the ability to provide a platform that helps to organize a tribe – a group of people interested in the same thing.  This can be done informally through blogs just like this, or it can be done more formally with a learning management system that provides University level functionality.  I’ve got both of these solutions running on different sites.

Most people on the web who want to organize a tribe around valuable content need something in-between.  Something that is able to provide secure logins, password protected pages and different levels of access.  Some levels of access may be free while others may require a fee.  So people who need to manage a site like that need to be able to keep track of who has paid and who hasn’t paid – and if someone hasn’t paid, they need to be able to identify them and block access to the paid content.

There are a stack of solutions for this type of thing and I’ve looked into most of them and purchased quite a few.  My favorite software is called WishList Member because it does all of the above, it’s cheap and it plugs straight into the WordPress content management system, which means you control everything from your WordPress dashboard.  Now that’s cool.  The other main thing is that it’s easy to use – so I’ve found that the annoyance factor is low.

The other cool thing is that the membership login form can be easily added to the sidebar of your blog.

This software also integrates with your email management system, such as Aweber or 1 Shopping Cart.  There are other more expensive solutions, but on the whole I reckon this software ROCKS!

Basically, WishList Member turns your WordPress blog into a fully fledged membership site.  Check it out.

Cool software to run your membershp site is a post from: Internet Business Tribe | Online Business, Internet Marketing, Product Reviews, Coaching

So, Google is beginning to push the social networking margins with the release of Google Buzz – an extra feature that can be activated within your Gmail account.

Rather than just sending and receiving emails – or sending and receiving instant messages – Buzz allows you to quickly and easily share rich multimedia stuff like photos and videos.  It easily integrates with other sites you’re already using like picassa, flickr, twitter and Google reader.

You can share stuff publicly or privately and because it’s in Gmail, it all goes to your inbox so you can keep track of it all.  Of course, it’s the internet, not a computer, so this is available on mobile internet devices – like my iPhone.

For me, I rarely use my computer for socializing and networking – for efficiency I use my phone for that stuff – and reserve my computer time for focused work and tangible outcomes.

Anyway – check out the Buzz video below and then go activate it in your Gmail account.  As usual – leave me a comment if you like this. Cool?

The buzz about Google today is a post from: Internet Business Tribe | Online Business, Internet Marketing, Product Reviews, Coaching

A while back (November last year Google put up this cool video explaining the change that is coming to web browing and personal computing.

Change.

Saying ‘change’ kinda understates the change.  It’s going to be huge.  Life will change forever (well, maybe not), but it will increasingly be the case that we don’t notice our computers because they don’t annoy us.  To see why I reckon this change is coming, watch the Google Chrome OS video below.  And if you like it, then leave me a comment about how you think it might change your ‘world’.

PS: I’ve been working on something Google-ish over the last few months.  It’s forward thinking and it’s based on new innovations like Chrome OS and Gwave.  It’s gunna be pretty cool and you’ll probably like it.  But that’s enough for now.

Google Chrome OS – The change is coming is a post from: Internet Business Tribe | Online Business, Internet Marketing, Product Reviews, Coaching

Following on in this series of posts about the steps I’m taking to market one of my online programs I thought I’d take you through the work I did on the website that I’m using as a case study, From Anxious to Happy.

The first thing I’d say about marketing a product online however is, just do something everyday – something toward achieving your desired outcome.

Using your website to converse with your visitor

It’s not enough to just put up a website with information and hope that people will access your stuff.  You need to converse with people and interact with them.  How do you do that on a website? One way is by using video, and I wrote about that the other day.  Another way is to encourage people to interact with your site by requiring them to take an action that takes them to another page of your website and provides you with another opportunity to converse with them.

This way you are leading your visitor through your website, which is entirely different than having them just land on a home page, do nothing, and then leave your site.

When people land on my new site, www.fromanxioustohappy.com, the first thing they encounter is an auto-play video of me speaking to them and giving them an orientation to the website.  I ask them to read the information below the video, I let them know that they can purchase the program, I let them know that they can download a free chapter from my book, Anxious but Happy and that they can watch the slides from a presentation I gave on anxiety disorder and panic attacks.  So, the video is informative as well as instructional – I give them things to do on the website.

Option 1: Downloading a free chapter.

So, what am I going to do with those people who choose to download a free chapter?  Do I just give them the chapter and that’s it?  No.  I want to converse with them, relate to them, and create an experience.  So, in order to access the free chapter, I require them to enter their email address – and that’s all.  At this stage I don’t ask for their name because I want to make it as easy as possible for them to take an action and asking for a name might stop some people from taking up my invitation to get a free chapter.

As soon as they enter their email address they are re-directed to a page where they can download the free chapter, and I lead this download page with a large heading that says ‘surprise bonus’, and I give them an additional chapter to download.  I wanted to create a good experience for them, and so after they decide to interact with me and get a free chapter, the first thing they encounter is a surprise and another free chapter from the book.  I could have given away both chapters at the beginning, but I would have missed the opportunity to create a small but additional impression – everyone likes surprises (when they’re good ones!).

I then remind them that they can purchase the entire program from a link on that page, and I also invite them to look at my slide presentation – another call to action and opportunity to make the experience interactive and keep the ‘conversation going’.  Of course, this is only going to work if the stuff you give them is good quality – few people are going to hang around for free crap.

In addition to what’s happening on the website, I’ve now also have the persons email address and I can send them emails to continue the conversation by providing good quality information and  mplying with privacy and anti-spam laws of course.

In order to make all of the above happen, I need to use an ‘auto-responder’, which is a piece of software that collects names and email address, can send emails automatically, and can also re-direct people to different webpages.  There are a number of different auto-responder services available and they’re very cheap when you’re starting out.  So, here’s how it works:

Person fills in email address –> activates the autoresponder –> the autoresponder collects their email and nominates them to receive a series of automated emails scheduled to be sent over the next two weeks –> the autoresponder then re-directs the person to the webpage with the surprise bonus –> and the process is continued –> the person receives the additional free chapter –> they are invited to purchase the entire program OR watch the slide presentation

Option 2: Watching the slide presentation.

People can watch the slide presentation for free, however it is just a plain presentation with no audio.  The presentation has high quality information about anxiety and panic attacks, however a presentation without the audio to go along with it isn’t the same as a presentation with audio.  So, directly under the slide show, I invite people get the audio version of the presentation by leaving their email address.  This is another opportunity to invite the person to interact with ‘me’ on the website.  As before, when they leave their email address, they are automatically added to the autoresponder series of emails and are then re-directed to the page with the audio version of the presentation (at the time of writing, I am re-doing the audio version).

On this page, they are also invited to download the free chapter (because they may have watched this first, before accessing the free chapter) and are reminded that they can purchase the whole program from a link on that page.

Summary

The website is now much more likely to engage someone rather than just presenting them with information.  It encourages them to be active rather than passive.  They come to the website – they see a video – the video invites them to ‘do something’ – they can either purchase the product, or they can enter either of two ‘free loops’: (1) download a free chapter or (2) watch the presentation.  If they choose either of these options, they are then given a further opportunity to interact by entering the other ‘loop’.  Finally, by choosing to receive a free chapter or watch an audio version of the presentation, they have given me their email address and I can then send them a series of emails in order to keep the conversation open.

The key to all this is the autoresponder – an essential tool for marketing online.

Let me know if you liked this post – leave a comment below!  Otherwise, you’re just being passive and I want to encourage you to become an ‘active web user’.  Can I also ask you to forward this on to your network of friends or colleagues – those who would find it useful.

Thanks and I hope you’re enjoying Internet Business Tribe.

How to create an online sales process for your products is a post from: Internet Business Tribe | Online Business, Internet Marketing, Product Reviews, Coaching

In a recent post, I wrote about the different steps I am using in a marketing plan to promote my self-published book, Anxious but Happy.  The ‘key’ to all this effort is the website, since this is the sales page – or sales ‘person’ – that is working day and night to connect with people and explain why my book is the book that they need.

Now, I’ve left out something important here.  In addition to the book, I’ve also written a ‘how to’ manual about how to overcome panic attacks and anxiety disorder, and the manual is called ‘From Anxious to Happy’.  I also recorded the majority of the information in down-loadable MP3 audio files for those who prefer to listen as well as read.  In order to make this ‘package’ as valuable and useful as possible, I’ve also included a guided meditation session (audio) and a report I’ve written on how to turn a possibility into an actuality. Turning possibility into actuality – or making dreams come true – is exactly where people with anxiety should be focusing; in fact, it’s where we should all be focusing.

Anyway …

I set up a website to promote the entire package – but this was ages ago – and before I really understood the value of using a content management system to build a website.  So, in the last few days I’ve completely re-built the site in preparation for a heavy SEO campaign to get the site ranked in Google.

Video

Now, with something like anxiety I thought it essential to include a video on the website.  Video is immediately engaging and can convey important messages in a short period of time.  Video’s are also very effective at helping to build rapport with the visitors to your site.  I’ve been doing video marketing for a while now, and I use a very casual and authentic approach – just as if I were talking to someone in person.  I set the video to ‘auto-play’ when you land on my site, as a couple of good friends with million dollars businesses tell me that the best sales conversions happen your video automatically plays when the page opens.  You can check out the video at my new site, www.fromanxioustohappy.com.  Keep in mind that at the time of writing, the site was still in development and may not be complete when you visit.

So, how did I do the video?

1. I recorded the video on a digital video camera that uses flash memory.
2. I stood in front of a white background and with the camera on a tripod and started talking.  I had about 4 points that I wanted to cover and wrote these in large writing so I could refer to these if necessary.  I didn’t need the notes once I’d warmed up.
3. I then uploaded the video into iMovie on my macbook and edited the video to include the sections I wanted (iMovie is incredibly easy to use)
4. I then exported the video for web-streaming and saved it as a .mov  file.

Now, here’s where it gets a little tricky.  If I were to put up a .mov file on my webpage, only people with QuickTime (by Apple) would be able to watch the video.  That’s no good for me, because most people use Internet Explorer and don’t have QuickTime installed.  So, to get the most coverage, it’s best to convert your movie to flash, which has the .flv extension.  There are a couple of ways to do this.  First, you could upload the .mov file to YouTube and this would convert the file into .flv.  You can then just embed the video from YouTube into your webpage.  Another alternative is to use software to convert the .mov file to .flv and stream the video yourself, which is what I did.  But, things aren’t always straightforward are they … the quality of the final version is no where near what it was, so I have to get better at converting video formats.

Now that I have the video on my webpage, it makes sense to put it in as many other places as possible – in other words, to syndicate.  So, now I’m off to upload my video to a range of video sharing sites – including my YouTube channel – and write a press release, and write an article …

So, you’re getting an inside look at the promotion of a product using internet marketing.  To follow along and watch it all unfold, all you need to do is subscribe to my RSS feed.

Marketing your own products: setting up a website that sells is a post from: Internet Business Tribe | Online Business, Internet Marketing, Product Reviews, Coaching

In march 2008 I visited a friend in Rome and over dinner we were talking about how we’d both had panic attacks and anxiety at various times in our lives.  I hadn’t experienced these in years though and as a health professional I’d been thinking about writing a book on anxiety – what it is and what the best treatments are.

You know when you’ve been thinking about doing something, and then you actually decide to do it?  Well I can remember that moment clearly – sitting in a restaurant near the Tiber River in Rome, I made the decision to write a book.

When I arrived home from that trip, I ‘white-boarded’ the plan of the book.  I wrote down the chapter headings and the sub-headings and then over the next few weeks, whenever I had an idea about the book, I would add it to the white-board.  Soon enough, the structure of the book took shape.

The Book: Anxious but Happy

I wrote the book the old-fashioned way.  No ghost writers.  I take a laptop with me virtually everywhere, and so I made use of all those ‘spare’ moments we have in a day.  The book was written in coffee shops, between patients, on the bus to and from work and late at night after the kids were in bed (writing a book beats watching TV).   I used a virtual assistant to retrieve research articles for me – which made a big difference and saved a lot of time.

With the book finished, I entered a period of extreme busy-ness and found it hard to find time to market the book – so it sat on my desktop for about 6 months (or more).  So, given there’s been hardly any marketing, how do you think sales of the book are going?  Slow right?  Writing a book is one thing, but unless you want to be the only one to read it, you have to market it.

Marketing

So, what am I doing to market my book?  I’m implementing 4 major strategies right now:

1. Joint venture
2. Website
3. Advertising
4. Press Release

Joint Venture

Joint venture (JV) is one of the quickest ways to build a list and market your product or service.  You come to a profit share arrangement with someone who already has a list of people and then they promote your product or service to their database using email, or physical mail.  The way I found my JV partners was to contact people in my network who had similar or complementary products.

Website

First, I purchased a domain name and was able to get the name of the book www.anxiousbuthappy.com

Second, I set up hosting and created the website – which included having to write sales copy.  Now, I’m no copywriter but I had a go at it.  It’s better to have something up there, instead of nothing at all.  Of course, I could outsource the copy writing and this is something I’m looking into.

Third, I set up a shopping cart button and installed this on the website so that people could purchase the book.  I’m using paypal as my payment gateway because I haven’t gone through the process of setting up my own online merchant account – and paypal works just fine.

The most important issue with websites is whether or not they’ll be found by the people who are looking for the product.  For the joint ventures I’m doing, the website will be included in the promotional material (emails).  But what about getting the website in front of people who are searching for a book on anxiety?  Unless the website is on the first page of Google for a given keyword, I wont be getting much traffic to the site.  So, I have to optimize the website (or rather, webpage) to appear high in the Google rankings.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is ‘easy’ when you know how, and ‘complicated’ to keep up with – it is a dynamic field.  I’ve been studying SEO in detail for the last 12 months and traveled to the US twice this year to learn basic and advanced strategies from some of the leading experts in the world.  So, fortunately for me, I know how to get web pages ranked on Google.  If you don’t have this knowledge or skill set, then it’s important to outsource and get someone else to do it for you.  The simple fact is, you have to be where people are searching for you.  If you can’t be found, you wont sell a thing.

I’m also promoting the book on my personal website, niclucas.com.  People who search for me by name will find my website and can navigate to the page I have about ‘books’.  In addition, I’ve also written about the book on my personal blog, and this is where most of my sales have been coming from.  I want to give you a link to see the blog post I wrote about this book, but I want to show you something about SEO at the same time.

When you create a link to another page, the words you use to make the link are important to Google.  So, if I want Google to know that the blog post I’m linking to is about a book on anxiety, then I should use the words ‘book about anxiety’ as the link text.  Many people, however, will make a link out of the words ‘click here’ or ‘read more’, which isn’t that useful when you think about it.  For instance, why would I want to tell Google that my blog post was about ‘click here’, when I could use the words ‘book about anxiety’ instead.

So, here goes – I’m going to link to my blog post using the words book about anxiety, which tells both you and Google exactly what the blog post is about.

Advertising

By advertising, I’m primarily referring to Google adwords or pay per click marketing.  These are the ads that appear on the right hand side or very top of the Google search results page.  This type of advertising can be highly targeted if you know what you’re doing – and you only get charged if people actually click on your ad.  I haven’t started this campaign yet, but it’s coming.

Press Release

News services scan press release websites to get the latest news.  So, if you want to get a message out about a new book it is essential to create a press release.  I’ve got a couple of things in the pipeline but the first service I’m using is PRWeb.  They’re inexpensive and effective and come highly recommended from people in my network who use it all the time.  Of course, there are other press release sites and these can be easily found by searching in Google.

Summary

Many people know that they’ve ‘got a book inside them’.  Self publishing is a great option and allows people to ‘get it done and out there’.  I’ve briefly touched on some of the internet marketing strategies I’m currently using to promote my book Anxious but Happy.  I’m also doing something with Amazon at the moment and I’ll let you know more about that later.

Marketing your own book is a post from: Internet Business Tribe | Online Business, Internet Marketing, Product Reviews, Coaching