Rob Bell's Notes from a Yorkshire Internet Megalomaniac

Marketing is not Promotion People – Get that in Your Heads.

Promotion and Advertising are tools used within a Marketing programme when a product or service is ready to be launched. There’s lots of marketing needs to be done before that stage  though.

There are so many people around claiming to be marketing experts because they’ve undertaken promotional actions to some degree of success – that doesn’t make you a marketing guru that makes you a promotions guru.

Marketing is much more than just promoting products – it’s researching markets, identifying opportunities and problems, developing services and products to solve those problems in a manner a customer would like  setting up and testing Marketing campaigns, using above the line-, below the line- and digital- methods to formulate, execute and analyse the success of each actitivy, something that is particularly easy online given the availability of data, constantly testing and refining promotions as needed. And eventually, the product is ready to go, hopefuly with a well-armed knowledge of the new market that will allow him or her to dominate.

Market Research

A true Marketer knows that any product needs research prior to committing, here are just 15:

1. What’s the size of the market?
2. Who are the major players?
3. How competitive is it?
4. Have you done any Keyword Research?
5. What’s the customer profile?
6. What are people in the market desperate for?
7. Are there any problems there you can solve through your product or service?
8. Are you asking people in the market if they see a place for your product?
9. Would they buy it or try it out and give it a mark out of 100 for you??
10. Are you doing usability studies?
11. What’s the best way to reach your target consumers? It’s not always going to be online, many niches can found away from the computer.
12. What are the best factors to identify in order to do competitive analysis? Price, Features, Quality, Exclusivity – they’ll be different  for each market
13. Does your product represent what you want to sell to them, or what they want to buy from you?
14. How could you change the former into the latter?
15. Where can your potential customers be found?

Next time, I’ll look at competitive positioning and discuss how understanding a fairly simple topic to grasp can help you know more about your market than most others

I’ve recently been playing about with the Google Connect and Facebook Connect applications – that let you implement social features on your site/blog. You’ll notice the new Facebook connect login section top left – it works fine for me, but I’d like some feedback – is it working okay for my readers?

Drop me a comment and let me know a. If you’re interested in using it, and b. How you found it if you have used it

I’m curious as to whether people see social features like this as something desirable or undesirable. Obviously from my point of view, I’d love to have some social functions beyond commenting on the site – and I’d be happy to see a ‘Tribe’ form here, as I believe my best writing is done when someone gives me a purpose to write for.

Went out for a delicious lunch today with my Mum – I haven’t been on an office Xmas lunch for years as I’ve not worked for anyone but myself for some years, so it was nice to try out Rustica, a new restaurant in Wakefield centre. Yea verily it was good! I particularly enjoyed the orange sorbet, although it was more like orange ice cream!

Adventures in North Yorkshire tomorrow, should be fun. I haven’t left West Yorkshire for months!!! One tends to get quite insular when winter brings additional back/hip pain, so a trip out will do me good, might take the camera too…

Today’s been a bit of a rubbish day – my back has been really painful all day, so I’ve been mostly laid up – it’s 4am here and it’s the first time I been on this today! I’m concious I haven’t posted since my database disaster, so wanted to give you an update.

My book’s about half ready – tomorrow (Thursday) is when it’s supposed to be ready for but I think It’ll be closer to Saturday providing I can sit at this chair tomorrow…

I’ve been experimenting quite a bit more on Squidoo, trying out different modules and developing a few pages… of the 6 that I’ve started this week, only one is published – as they’ve had to take a back seat to my book completion, but you can see that at http://www.Squidoo.com/freshbooks – leave a comment there and let me know what you think. Remember to leave your comment in my debate and vote in the poll.

Do you already know and use Squidoo? Leave a comment with your lens address, and I’ll go look at them and give you stars.

Through my research I’ve come into contact with lots of web applications with fantastic benefits for the users – some will grow to be very useful, but others are already there… They’ll all be in my book – even the ones that are still in beta if they’re next-gen functional and useful for building your business and increasing your subscribers. I’ve been privileged to help test some really excellent stuff, and I’ll tell you all about it.

I didn’t win the TV in the Phase 1 Video Contest for my DotComSecrets challenge, but the winner and his family were very deserving of the award as their video was mint! I’m just really pleased to have been in the top 10, I hate being on film -but the people who voted for me obviously don’t hate me on video, and that feels good.

Right back to bed now – pain stops play!

Rob

Originally submitted by rob 5 days ago

After running my ASK campaign for almost 2 weeks so far, I’ve got a reasonable selection of questions. I also set up google alerts, and upped my use of a lot of internet marketing forums, observing which questions were asked the most.

From this data, I now have the outline for my product – and a name!

Presenting “Take Over the World for Free” – taa daaa (if you were thinking of stealing the .com before I bought it, it’s too late!)

I’m not prepared to give too many details out about it on a public blog yet, but it’s basically a guide to building a business online using only free resources! It’s targeted at Offline Business Owners, the Self-Employed, Internet Marketers – in fact, anyone who wants to enhance their business through the global wealth builder known as the Internet.

Whether you own a car plant or a car yard, a window company or a window cleaners, a stately home or a hovel in a state – this guide is for you.

It’s important for me that this product be useful to people who’ve never done any marketing online as much as it is for people who have, or are struggling. I want local business owners to be able to take the guide and establish their own profiles and communities online, I want societies to be able to spread their messages to wider communities, and I want individuals to empower themselves using some great, free tools and resources.

My Sales Funnel looks like this right now -

1. Summary Book covering general themes and promoting actual book(free)
2. Take Over the World for Free (large manual)
3. Take Over the World Members Programme (membership site, affiliate features, profiles, forums, access to online training of tools in book)
4. DVD/Home Study Course
5. Take Over the World Megalomaniac System (Membership site from where system is easily deployed – regularly updated as a web application)

So that’s 4 paid product levels and a 5th Free intro to the materials. I’m not sure how I’m going to get the Megalomaniac System built yet – but I’ll find a way!

I’ve bought the domain ‘robbelllinks.com’ which I’m going to use as a resources page so people can get to the tools and sites I’m using in the guide without having to keep typing them in themselves.

I’m really happy with the way things are going at the moment – research went well, I’m upbeat about the subjects – I know where to find the experts I need to ensure this is stellar content, and I’m about to start reaching out to them. I’ve obviously hesitant that I can do it all in time – it’s been so long since I last wrote a book I have newbie jitters all over again.

10 day countdown begins today – Beta v1 ready by 30th Oct
I’m feeling the pressure a little with Russell’s deadline, I haven’t worked to any really tight timescales for a little while. Just means I’m going to have to sort this falling asleep/waking up thing out – psh, like I can sort that lifelong problem out this week – I’ve got all-nighters to pull!

On a lighter note, I’m WELL CHUFFED to currently be number 6 in the Phase 1 Video Contest!!! That TV would look mighty fine in front of my eyes, compared to the one I have now that a friend gave me when he was going to throw it out! The only High Def in my house is the PC Monitor! The only thing that makes me a little hesitant is the question of whether it’s PAL compatible – or solely an NTSC box – why we can’t just have the same television standard these days I do not know.

You can still vote for me at http://contest.dotcomsecrets.com/voting.php?_v=95

Rob

thanks to Elvis for providing today’s headline (although Mark James actually wrote the song!)

A few days working nose to the grindstone have resulted in lots of progress with various projects. One of the projects has given me some headaches though – as my intentions were called into question, very unnecessarily in my opinion.

Previous readers will know about my research project into Internet Marketing, where I’m asking people to submit their single biggest question about Internet Marketing at Ask Rob Bell

This is an important project to me, one I’ve already invested over 1 hundred hours in, so I was a little put out, as you might imagine, when it was suggested to me that it was a transparent trick to harvest email addresses – I mean, what the heck?!?!

I have several ways to increase my subscribers and get people onto my lists, several of which are working very very well, but the ‘Ask Rob Bell’ project is not one of them. I simply want to find out and understand what people in Internet Marketing actually want to know – and asked for email addresses so I could send a copy of the upcoming book to the people with the best questions.

So to allow people who don’t want to leave any contact details to submit their questions, I’ve started a version of the page that only requires the question – no other details needed. Anyone who uses this form won’t be able to get a copy of the book as I’ll have no email address to send it to, but it should make paranoid people feel safer about submitting their best question!

I’m aware of general themes and sub-niches within the industry, but I’m not a psychic – I wouldn’t ever presume to know what other people want to know without asking them first. It seems rather arrogant to think I know so much that I can tell people what they want to know without asking them – am I able to read minds or something?!?!?! Well actually… that’s a tale for another time!

A cornerstone of any successful marketing project has to involve research – without which, how can anyone hope to understand their market fully?

“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after” is a quote from J.R.R.Tolkien – author of the Hobbit and epic fantasy, The Lord of the Rings trilogy