We get lots of very successful affiliates who sell our products - that sign up with us and hit the ground running.

Others, to be honest, struggle.  They don’t know how to be successful online.

The little-known fact of the matter is that it broadly follows the same rules as offline marketing - but with different tactics online.

So here’s the question:

What do you need to know and to learn, in order to be successful online?

What do you KNOW that you DON’T know?

(not yet a 2u Mobile Phone Affiliate? Click here to join)

Now, I know there maybe things that you don’t know that you don’t know, but lets maybe put those to one side for now.  What DO you know that you don’t know, in order to get  successful online?

Any answers are OK - let us know where you might need help and we will do what we can to help you.

 Simply answer in the comments section below - click “comments” below to reply.

This is brand new and hence has only very limited stats to show for itself, but if you have your own blog, this is a new method to get targeted (or at least semi-targeted) traffic to your site.

Down the left side of this blog you will see a dark block area saying “From the Blogoshpere …”

This is Blog Rush, a free marketing tool to get traffic to your blog.

It works like an advert swap; you have links to other sites, and other sites have links to you.

As I said, it is new and hence unproven, but it makes sense, its free and it is worth a try, to get free targeted traffic to your blog.

To register for free go to
http://www.2uaffiliates.com/public/BlogRush.html

Here is a quick book review of some very good business books I have chewed my way through recently …

1. Mark Joyner’s “The Irresistible Offer”
2. Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail”
3. Ben Mack’s “Think Two Products Ahead”

What I have tried to do below is give you distilled information from the books, so you dont need to read the whole book, but you can do if you want to fill in the gaps. I do recommend reading these books, or at least fully understanding the concepts in them.

1. Mark Joyner writes with a clarity that helps you to read, and understand easily. The main overall point of the book is this …

Give your customer the best possible experience and you will sell again and again. Don’t focus on clever marketing, with special words etc to get people to part with their money – just focus on making the product and the offer to the customer so amazing that they will buy from you, remain happy, and then buy again.

There must be a quid pro quo – good for me – good for you – value exchange.

Mark Joyner turns on its head an oft over-used expression “ROI” or “Return On Investment” – from the viewpoint of the CUSTOMER, not the business. What is the customer’s ROI if they buy? Is what they are buying worth more than the money they are parting with? If yes, then that is good ROI for the customer, and they are more likely to buy from you again.

The “Great Formula” is …

1. Find a thirsty crowd
2. Give them “The Irresistible Offer”
3. Give them a second class

The Irresistible Offer is an …

“Identity building offer central to a product, service or company, where the believable return on the customer’s investment is communicated so clearly and efficiently that it is immediately apparent that you would have to be a fool to pass it up.”

The 4 Big Questions that are the unspoken inner dialogue of a potential customer are …

What are you trying to sell me?
How much (including hidden cost eg time)?
Why should I believe you?
What’s in it for me?

The Irresistible Offer consists of …

1. Touchstone – key idea expressed in a few words
2. Believability
3. High ROI offer (for the customer)

There is a free audio interview with Mark Joyner and Joe Vitale, where they discuss the book’s concepts in detail, at
http://www.markjoyner.name/widgets/calls/joe/tio.htm

2. Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail” is a seminal book – it is a landmark. It changes the way we see the world. In reality, he is showing us what was already happening, so it maybe shouldn’t be so groundbreaking, but it shows you the modern business world in absolute clarity.

In essence this is a book about economics, but before your eyes blur, it is about the economics of modern business, laid out in a way you will understand.

Historically, because of the costs of making products and distributing them, only a handful of products get sold. Within that handful, there are ‘hits’ that are pushed and marketed heavily to sell more. Some sell more than others. Because of this, the graph of the distribution of the sales levels of these products looks like this …

 The hits on the left - The ‘long tail’ on the right

On the left of the graph is the big hits – the products that sell lots more than the other products. Because of the cost of making and distributing products, retailers can only afford to stock and sell the best selling products, to make enough money to cover the cost of their shop rent, staff, buying in stock etc.

However, because of 3 factors, most visible online, retailers are now able to offer products further to the right on this graph. That is, products that are more in the ‘long tail’ of the distribution graph are now able to be sold effectively. These 3 factors leading to the long tail effect are …

1. Democratising the tools of production – it is now cheaper/easier to make stuff
2. Democratising the tools of distribution – it is now cheaper/easier to get stuff to the customer
3. Search methods – filters – How customers find out about that product - eg search engines, “customers who bought this also bought that” suggestions.

This means that a retailer can cost-effectively sell products further down the long tail. Retailers can sell 1’s or 2’s of all those thousands of different products way over to the right of the distribution graph. Those 1’s and 2’s multiplied by thousands of different products adds up to a good profit for the retailer.

As a result of all this, as consumers, we now have more and more products available for us to choose from. If we want a CD of Led Zeppelin’s 1976 B-sides only, now we are much more likely to be able to find that – or anything far more obscure.

This brings us to the concept of ‘niche’ - which is small sections of the long tail. The internet allows a certain niche to be explored fully and potentially profitably. A business may be a pure niche eg 1950’s baseball caps, or a niche aggregator, like Amazon (because Amazon has such a massive range of niche books and music).

What we end up with is a world of massive choice as a consumer – it is all about being able to find what you want.

For a business, we end up with possibly massive opportunities, where we can serve this new audience of fragmented customers who want different things, by serving either deep into a niche, or across many niches.

More info at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail

3. Ben Mack’s “Think Two Products Ahead” can almost be understood from the title, especially if you have already read “The Irresistible Offer”.

The idea is similar to a good snooker/pool play or a chess player - you dont just make the best move for now - you make the best move for now, and the next move, and the next - so you are planning your move now in light of your future moves.

This book is essentially about your brand. And before you sigh a bored sigh or think “Branding is far too expensive for me”, read on – branding is not what you think.

Mack outlines your brand as being about whatever a potential customer or customer thinks of you and your product. A good brand will better encourage that customer to buy again and again.

The main aim of this concept of branding is to give the customer what they want and keep them happy, encourage them to use your products (particularly after they have purchased) and remain happy – they are then more likely to buy from you again.

Reading Mack’s book is harder going than Joyner’s book – Mack is very intelligent and makes me think he has watched a lot of Marx Brothers film, by the way he plays with words. This makes it entertaining, if a little harder to quickly read.

Mack goes into some examples of his ideas - for which you would be best to read the book.

You will most likely find all these books in your local book store. Personally I got these books either at www.amazon.co.uk for the paper version, or www.audible.co.uk for the audio book which is easier to digest while I am doing something else.

I hope this helped

Walking back from taking the kids to school today, I took the long way home, because I wanted to listen to something on my iPod that I had was increasingly intrigued by.

You see, I am in the middle of an excellent (audio) book. It is by the fore-father of modern practical ‘aimed’ hypnosis, and how you can control and change the way your life is going.

His name is Dr Maxwell Maltz, and he was originally a plastic surgeon. He became interested in how some of his patients underwent a dramatic change in their life after plastic surgery - and yet how others who had similar pre-surgery ‘problems’ and had the same surgery did NOT undergo any life changes - that is changes in how their life is going, how happy they are etc.

I thoroughly recommend you get and read this book. Better yet, do what I did, cheat a little and LISTEN to the book (SO much easier). The book is called “The New Psycho-Cybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz. I got mine at http://www.2uaffiliates.com/training-centre/audible. You do not need to be a monthly subscriber to get this book, but it works out cheaper if you are.

Have a look at http://www.2uaffiliates.com/training-centre/audible click through then do a keyword search for “Cybernetics”. You will then find “The New Psycho-Cybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz and Dan S Kennedy. Click through, order and read - I thoroughly recommend it.

I previously studied and trained in Psychology, and it fascinated me. But the main thing that stopped me taking that profession further was this …

It almost entirely focuses on what is WRONG with people – their problems, psychoses, issues, mental abnormality etc.

Well, for a start, in addition to being singularly negative, that leaves out the large part of the population – those that do not have major issues.

But what about those people that are otherwise ‘normal’ or sane, that want a better life for themselves? How can they use modern Psychology to improve their lives?

This book by Dr Maltz will most certainly start you on the right road. Go http://www.2uaffiliates.com/training-centre/audible, click through and search for “Cybernetics” or “Maltz”. You can also get it in normal book format at www.amazon.co.uk but it is easier to get it as an audiobook (instant download) and listen to it in your downtime, while you travel, wash-up etc.

As an audiobook or normal paper book - It will certainly help you.

What does it mean to be an affiliate?

This is worth understanding, because it is not until you fully get this that you can start making money as an affiliate. Until you understand this, you are MISSING OUT on the money.

As an affiliate, what is your side of the bargain?

In essence the relationship between a merchant/affiliate-network and an affiliate is this …

1. The merchant’s job is to provides the product/service, and the sales tools (sales channel, payment system, often some marketing tools) to be able to sell it.
2. The affiliate’s job is to bring in targeted visitors that can potentially become paying customers.

So the affiliate’s job is the marketing to bring in the customer. It is up to the affiliate to do whatever it takes to bring in that customer. If that means building a separate website that attracts the customer, then that is what the affiliate does.

I get asked many times, if I can build someone’s site for them, or if I can get traffic to an affiliate’s site for them. My response is always with this question …

“If I build your site/do the marketing for you and bring in the customer, what would I be paying you for?”

Merchant-affiliate relationships are ALWAYS about value exchange.

You as an affiliate bring in customers and in return get paid commission.

A merchant gets customers buying his product/service (on which he obviously earns a percentage profit), and in return pays the affiliate for that.

= VALUE EXCHANGE.

Now as a caveat to this, it is in the merchant’s interest to do everything he can to HELP the affiliate to sell. 2U gives more tools and training to affiliates than any other I know of. We will continue to work hard to help YOU to make sales.

But remember - If we did all the work to get a customer, why would we pay an affiliate? Paying affiliates is always for something that the merchant has NOT done and the affiliate has, that brings VALUE to the merchant ie a customer.

So do not let that cloud the clarity of the relationship. As an affiliate, you want and need to be - it is your job to be - working on bringing in targetted customers, with the aim of getting them to buy the product/service. 2U, as your merchant, will continue to work hard to provide you with the best sales channel possible, to enable you to sell and to earn.

I hope this helps clarify things for you, so you can work to EARN MORE MONEY!

If you run any form of business that is selling any kind of product to a consumer or human being, then you should watch these free films. Do you know how the mind of the consumer works? Do you know how that thought process got to where it is today? This is worth knowing …

These excellent BBC films will tell you more …

Free Film 1

Free Film 2

Free Film 3

Free Film 4

If the films stop at any point, slide the slider-bar slightly to the right past that sticking point.

I get the Economist magazine weekly. I read it avidly whenever I can. The only downside is that it often so packed full of important articles that I don’t always get time to read them all. So I end up snatching 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there reading the next bit of an article I am in the middle of reading.

(By the way, if you don’t already get it, I would recommend it – they are doing a special offer at the moment. The issues are £3.50 each if you buy them individually, but the special offer is 12 issues for just £12, which is pretty good -
http://www.economist.com/.)

Anyway, today I was catching up on an article in one of last month’s magazines (that is how much I am behind because of paternity leave and slotting in work etc). The article is an in-depth survey of the global economy, and this ties in and effects your own business quite a lot. More on how this effects you in a minute …

It is all about the truth about the effect of the global market, outsourcing and offshoring (where people in other counties do a job or task for a company in this/another country).

In summary …

It is not so much about how jobs have been lost to foreign countries (in reality very few have, relative to the overall market of the UK or USA), so much as wages depressed for *fear* of the potential for jobs to be moved abroad. In Germany, 3 major companies recently signed contracts with their labour unions to REDUCE wages across the board, in return for the company agreeing NOT to move the jobs to foreign countries. Ie because of the THREAT of losing their jobs to abroad, they accepted wage cuts … Even if their jobs were not actually going to BE moved abroad.

Most affected are the middle employment area between low paid, low skilled jobs and high paid, high skilled jobs – that middle ground being Accountants, web developers, radiologists, mid-level skilled work – because the tasks for these jobs, with the aid of modern technology and telecoms, can be communicated over vast distances to the cheaper wages of the far east, China, India etc.

Why is the middle area effected? The lower end jobs, eg a Janitor or cleaner’s job, could not be done by someone in India etc. Likewise, top-level management, eg a Director could not delegate decision-making responsibilities to other non-employed outsource staff.

Meanwhile, the middle level skill jobs ARE tradable - there are trained accountant, web-developers etc in India, China, Brazil etc that can do the job perfectly adequately, will do it for a fraction of the normal UK/USA cost, AND with the aid of the internet and other modern communication tools, CAN be done over vast distances.

The global market IS a reality. Outsourcing IS a reality. Emerging economies, India and China in particular, will in a few short years be dominant on the world economy, and hence political scene. For example, at present India and China combined produce 1.2 million University science and engineering (hecne technical and about ‘development’) graduates each year, which is more than the UK, USA the whole of the European zone AND Japan PUT TOGETHER … Which means they are producing more trained, skilled labour than we are, and hence can do more and more of the middle-level jobs.

How does this affect you?

There are 2 ways that this affects you …

• You need to make sure that you are not in a ‘tradable’ job. That means that your job is not ‘offshorable’ ie that it is not the type of job that gets moved to offshore locations. In the extreme, this means you need to be either the Janitor, cleaner etc or the Director, CEO etc. If you are reading this here, then you are likely to be wanting to be, if not already be, the Director. You need to be in charge of your own company, no matter how big or small that is.
• You need to USE the global markets for you own benefit. A point I have made many times is this (in counter to the myopic argument that outsourcing is using ‘sweatshops’ or slave labour etc) … We use a number of outsource staff – and we pay them above the normal wage for them in their country. This wage is still considerably lower than a UK person of similar ability, so we are saving money, hence able to achieve more for our money. So outsource as many tasks and sections of your business as you strategically can.

So with this in mind, the main question you need to consider is “How an I going to put this into action?”

Part of the 2U ADVANCED Marketing Course goes in some detail into exactly how you can put this into action to your own benefit, and how it becomes part of the overall growth of the global economy.

The ADVANCED Marketing Course is available at the end of the Basic Marketing Course (after 10 days – you need to go through the first 10 days of the Basic course, as a foundation for the ADVANCED course to build upon).

If you have not already, you can sign up for the Basic Marketing Course in your 2U login area at https://users.2u.co.uk/.

If you have previously signed up for the Basic course and stopped it before you got to the end, simply re-subscribe once you are logged in at https://users.2u.co.uk/, soak up the first 10 days, then subscribe to the ADVANCED Marketing Course when you are instructed.

Login and subscribe now at https://users.2u.co.uk

OK - I’ll admit it …

It is BIGGER than I thought.

The Special Report I am writing on Search Engine Optimisation strategies is growing and growing. I had planned for it to be a concise summary, but then I realised I wanted to give the EXACT tactics as well as the overall strategies - and to show PRECISELY the step-by-step procedures.

Already it is 67 pages long! I am now mostly proof reading it so it should be out soon (although looking after my new baby might slow things down a bit).

So I just wanted to let you know that it is getting nearer to the time when the Special Report will be released. By the way, I am going to be giving some free updates to this report. Once you have the report, you will be able to get updates where I will show you what ELSE I had achieved (and you can too) and how.

Speak soon,

Duncan Elliott

Hi,

You probably heard that I hame doing a Brain Dump of everything I have learnt from 8 years of running online businesses into a Special Report (actually it has become more of a book!) all about dominating the search engines.

It is being created still - which is a good thing … In the last month alone I have learnt and tested even more gems of search engine strategies, so these are all going into the book.

FYI - I have also been writing a FREE 10-Day 2U Marketing Course (which is now completed), plus an Advanced 10-Day Marketing Course, in text, HTML and recording them in Audio (because it is easier to listen then read).

This has obviously taken up a bit of my waking hours. I will tell you how you can get the Courses as soon as the Advanced one is finished.

Meanwhile, I am completing the “7 Secrets to Search Engine Domination” book, so I will let you know as soon as that is completed.

My fingers have typing-ache …

… because the “7 Secrets to Search Engine Domination: SEO Power Linking” Special Report I have been writing is already 40 pages long. At about 500 words per page on average that is about 20,000 words of pure brain dump from my knowledge and experience over the last 5 years of running and growing internet businesses (it is actually fewer words than this because it has some step-by-step images to make it easier to understand).

To be honest, when I started it I thought it would be (and was intending for it to be) a fairly short report outlining the best ways to build links to your own site. As I have been getting into it and really giving a fuller step-by-step outline of how to do it, and giving some little known methods and secrets to it, it has got bigger and better every day I have been working on it.

Phew! I will be in touch when it is ready for you to ‘eat it up’.