Creative content is the key to creating buzz

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dean Hunt from the UK. Dean is one of the leading experts in the field when it comes to buzz marketing… and he’s only 26 years old! He’s truly a marketing genius and knows how to get people talking.

For those of you who have been a subscriber of mine will probably know that I’m a BIG fan of viral marketing and I happen to agree with many of the stuff Dean said. It’s all about creating CONTENT that will turn into link baits - whether its humor, quality tips, controversy, value etc. Read the interview below:

1. What did you do before you stumbled across the internet? And how did you eventually got started with internet marketing?

I have done everything from graphic design, to being a professional golfer. I squeezed a lot into my youth. I stumbled across Internet Marketing really without knowing exactly what it was. I created a sports betting forum in 2003, and basically I wanted to make it popular, so I just experimented with lots of techniques. It was only later that I realized that what I was doing was actually called “marketing”.

2. What initial obstacles did you face and how did you overcome them?

Lack of funds were my main issue early on, so I overcame them by being creative, utilizing contacts, and learning how to get noticed.

3. What is the difference between buzz marketing and viral marketing?

For me, buzz is the action and viral is the result. For example, if I stand in Time Square New York naked and sing ‘Like a Virgin’ by Madonna, then I will create a buzz, later, if people tell their friends about it, then that is the viral stage. So really, viral marketers are actually buzz marketers who are looking to go viral, they just don’t realize that yet.

4. How did you become known as the buzz marketing expert?

Again, kinda by accident. I started my blog as simply a way to keep my thoughts and ideas, it wasn’t really something that I wanted to share with the world, but then I started getting traffic, and when I analyzed that traffic, I noticed that people responded most to anything that was creative, different, funny, or edgy. A pattern soon emerged, and I discovered that creative content is the key to creating buzz.

I also have managed to have huge success over and over again on sites like Digg.com, so that has helped cement my place as the leading buzz marketing expert on the net.

5. Could you perhaps use a case study of yours and walk us through a step-by-step process to a successful buzz marketing campaign?

I actually have done a few case studies, you can download one of them here: http://www.webtrafficorgasm.com/casestudy.zip or signup for free at www.buzzprofits.com and I will send you them all. They show EXACTLY how I did it.

6. What do you exactly do to monetize your buzz marketing efforts?

I use what I like to call “down the line monetization”. What this means is that I don’t look to profit from the traffic straight away. Most people don’t grasp this concept, and that is why they have to work a lot harder than me to go viral.

Say for example you create come killer buzz content, and you get 100,000 visitors in a one day period. The usual method is to plaster your site with loads of adverts, and if you are lucky, you can make $200 from adsense.

That is what most people do.

However, for that $200, you now have 100,000 people who think your site was annoying, spammy and crap. So you will never see them again.

What I do is don’t look to monetize instantly, in fact, I have been known to strip all ads off my site when I detect that I am about to go viral, and my personal blog has zero ads on it. Then, when people come, they read my content, they check my other stuff, they subscribe to my newsletter, they add my feed to their reader, they bookmark me, they email their friends etc… and I build a relationship/following with them.

Now, as well as dramatically increasing the popularity and value of my site and brand, these extra followers can be sold to at a later date, hence why I call it “down the line”. I sell to them later down the line.

It might even be 6 weeks later.

7. What else do you do to make money online apart from buzz marketing?

I recently started doing consultancy services to web businesses that want to dramatically increase the popularity and profits in their company. I do this with my awesome biz partner Barry Dunlop (BarryDunlop.com) and it is going well. I don’t normally plug, but if anyone is interested in our services, please contact me ASAP at my personal email: deanhunt08@gmail.com as we only have two places left on the program.

8. You have an very interesting blog with tons of personality in it - the bunnies, the $1 million dollar review, the 6 billion RSS reader etc. Tell us a bit about these and why do you do those wacky stuff. It’s certainly not things you see normally on a typical blog.

That is why I do it. Most people don’t get why I do it, but it is the same reason that people where bright clothing… to be noticed and remembered. I read hundreds of blogs per week, and I forget about 99% of them. The ability to stand out above the crowd, get noticed, and be remembered is the essence of buzz marketing and branding in today’s world.

9. Any final comments? Plans for the future?

I know there are a lot of businesses struggling out there at the moment, so I would strongly recommend that they contact us ASAP and we can discuss some exploits, techniques and strategies to improve their Internet Success (deanhunt08@gmail.com). Thanks for your questions, and I hope that this has been useful to your readers.

Dean (www.deanhunt.com)

Seriously. I don’t get why people care so much about their Alexa ranks… and people start freaking out when they see that their rankings start to drop. A person once asked me, “Stanley, how much traffic do I need to break into the top 100,000 on Alexa?” And the answer is… I don’t know.

Here’s the thing. Over the past few months, I’ve had many sites break into the top 100,000 yet each of those sites had completely different amounts of traffic.

For example, recently with StanleyTang.com, it received over 12,000 unique visitors in a 24 hour period after being featured on the frontpage of AppleDaily, yet Alexa says it only has a ranking of 73,000. On the otherhand, emillionsblog.com received just 1,000 unique visitors that day (12 times less traffic) but according to “accurate Alexa” it had a ranking of 60,000. In fact, a few months ago, one of my niche sites cumulated over 1,700 unique visitors that particular day and it soared into the top 20,000 on Alexa.

So which one should I believe:

• 12,000 UV - 73,000 Alexa Rank
• 1,000 UV - 60,000 Alexa Rank
• 1,700 UV - 20,000 Alexa Rank

Unless you offer some sort of advertising service (in which case it looks “good” to potential advertisers) or you just simply want to brag about it to your internet marketing friends/customers (in which case you can simply purchase Alexa traffic bots from the DigitalPoint marketplace), I personally wouldn’t care too much about my Alexa ranks. The only “real” traffic stats I care about are my Google Analytics and AWStats.

What do you think of Alexa rankings?

Now this is what I call “traffic generation”:

(it’s now at 14,200 visits)

Click here to read the full case study

1. Guest star on a radio talk show. Radio talk shows are hot these days and make a great platform for you to get your name out there.
2. Get yourself on television. Do a local television show as a guest. If you have the money pay for a local commercial spot. Television is an amazingly effective medium.
3. Be a guest speaker. Go to local clubs or organizations and volunteer to be a guest speaker for their next function. This works best if the group is somehow related to your product or group members are a part of your target market.
4. Make yourself into an expert. Being an expert gives you status and makes people believe in you. Start establishing yourself as an expert in your community so you can have people start vouching for your expertise.
5. Advertise in a local magazine. Local magazines are affordable and a good way to get your name to the public.
6. Get in a newsletter. Many local organizations and groups publish newsletters that go out to all their members. You need to get your name in there. Write a guest article or do an interview.
7. Put up a billboard. Billboards are attention grabbing and they send your message out to a large number of people.
8. Place newspaper ads. Newspaper ads are surprisingly effective and affordable. Use them to your advantage.
9. Hand out flyers. Flyers allow you to target customers and add that personal touch because it gives you face time with them as you are passing them out.
10. Use direct mailings. Direct mail is a proven method of advertising. You can make highly targeted mailings and reach your customers with a fairly inexpensive method of marketing.
11. Start up a telemarketing campaign. Telemarketing is a very effective. It is also something you can do on your own so it is cheap.
12. Print up business cards. Business cards are great tools that can be used in many different ways. You can hand them out, leave them at local stores and even send them with orders.
13. Sponsor a contest. Offer your products as a prize for a contest. Be sire to include your label or business card with your URL in the prize package.
14. Sponsor a sports team. Local non-school associated sports teams rely on sponsors to fund their programs. In exchange for sponsoring the team you get your business name displayed on their uniforms. It is a great trade off.
15. Give to charity. Give in the name of your business and you will help your business reputation.
16. Get in the church bulletin. Church bulletins are well read and they are a great place to get your business name published. You should contact the pastor to see how you can get in the bulletin.
17. Develop an offline affiliate program. Affiliate programs are not just for online. If you have a product that can be easily carried around and showed off then you can make an offline program.
18. Become a news story. Do something newsworthy or become part of a news story and you will get free publicity from the news.
19. Host promotional product giveaways. Giving away promotional items is a great idea because you are giving away something free and people love that. Plus you are giving away something that advertises your business, so that is good for you. It is a win-win situation.
20. Print up t-shirts. T-shirts are great advertising tools. Think about how many times you have stopped to read someone’s tee shit. Now think about how amazing that could be for your business.
21. Pass out bumper stickers. Bumper stickers are a cheap way to get your business name out there. You can give them away with orders or just hand them out to people who already have one on their car.
22. Use the old stand by of word of mouth. Word of mouth has been a great tool for building many businesses. Put it to work for you by encouraging people to tell others about you.
23. Set up shop at fairs or festivals. Fairs and festivals allow you to reach a large group of shoppers. You can set up a booth for a small fee and sell quite a bit of product.
24. Print up pamphlets. Pamphlets allow you to put all the important information is an easy to read package. People do not usually mind taking a pamphlet and looking it over. Plus it is a nice reminder of your URL and business name.
25. Send out text messages. People use text messaging as a main form of communication these days. Get into the trend and send out text messages like you would email messages. People like to forward messages so make yours catchy enough to be something they will forward and get more mileage out of your efforts.
26. Post ads on bulletin boards. Bulletin boards are underused tools. They are simple to use and free. Post a flyer on one for a boost in sales. Make sure you get permission, though, and follow the rules.
27. Be a part of the Sunday paper. The Sunday newspaper is the most popular newspaper and the prime market for advertising. You can either put an ad in the classifieds or you can add a flyer to the loose pages of the paper.
28. Team up with a local business. Find a local business that complements your business and see if the owner wouldn’t mind working with you. You can give the business an online presence and you can use them offline. You can trade business cards and even team up for package deals.
29. Create a phone book listing. The phone book is still a great place to get found. You can even buy an ad where you can put your URL. People still use the yellow pages a lot to find businesses so this makes this a natural place to advertise.
30. Think outside the box. Try off the wall ideas. See every situation you encounter as an opportunity. You might just be surprised at the results.
31. Go to an offline event. This is probably the most important and effective way. Not only can you generate traffic to your website, you are also building relationships with potential joint venture partners.

Okay, I’ve began using Twitter 2 days ago and already I’ve seen some pretty incredible results

24 Hour Update

• 370 new followers
• 60 unique visitors

Not bad, considering all those are free traffic, all from just the first day!

48 Hour Update

• 500 followers (<--estimated)
• 349 unique visitors

72 Hour Update

• 645 followers
• 647 unique visitors

So, 647 extra free traffic in three days, all from spending a few minutes each day Twittering. Not bad.

Looks like Twitter is the new Facebook? Is this the future of Internet marketing?

What’s your opinion? Leave your comments

Stanley Tang

P.S. - Remember, if you have not yet done so, follow me at:
http://www.twitter.com/stanleytang

Technorati Tags: social media, social marketing, twitter, web 2.0, web traffic

One of the most effective internet marketing strategies to generating free traffic on the internet is by the writing and marketing of articles. It isn’t a secret that the internet has an insatiable appetite for words.

Content really is king on the internet and there is a constant search by those who own websites and those who publish E-zines for material… new material to put on their websites or in the E-zines. It is true that the internet is made up of more than words but words are in the greatest demand.

Articles that are to be submitted to article banks should meet certain standards, of course, and you will not make any money at all from the articles that you submit to these article banks. You will get advertising…free advertising but you will not be paid.

Very, very briefly articles which are to be submitted to article banks need to:

1. Be no longer than 300 to 400 words long.
2. Need to be key word rich.
3. Need to have an attention getting title that includes key words.
4. Need to have an attention getting first sentence that includes key words.
5. Need to contain a resource box that has your full name and the address to your website.

You can write the articles yourself. You can hire ghost writers to write them for you or you can purchase PLR (Private Label Rights) articles and rewrite them.

You can either do the submissions to the article banks yourself by hand, so to speak, or you can use submission software that can help you cut down on the time involved or you can hire an article submission company to do article submissions for you.

Whatever course you choose for getting articles written and submitted will be fine. You just need to do it because this is one of the most effective free advertising methods ever devised.

Technorati Tags: internet marketing, make money online, free traffic, article marketing

For those who sell their own products online, as you know, running your own affiliate program is probably one of the best internet marketing strategies to make money online. But the biggest problem is getting those affiliates to actually promote your products.

Here are 5 ways to motivate your affiliates to sell more:

1. Make it easy to promote

Make it as easy as you can for the affiliates. Provide them the emails, ads, and tools which they can use, so all they have to do is copy and paste. Make it so easy to promote that even a 10 year old can do it. Don’t expect them to promote if you only just give them an affiliate link.

2. Give higher commission

Especially for digital products, these days 50% is just the normal commission now. Offer them 60%, 70%, or even 100% commission. And make your money in the backend.

3. Run contests and competitions

That way, your affiliates will get motivated and excited about promoting your product. Perhaps you can offer prizes like, the affiliate who sells the most will get a free laptop.

4. Stay in constant communication

Constantly email them with good promotional tools, and most importantly, good content so that you’re educating your affiliates. Remember, the more you educate them, the better they’ll get at promoting, the more sales they’ll make for you, and ultimately, the more money you’ll make!

5. Give surprise bonuses and prizes

Perhaps you can send them a Christmas card, or a $20 Amazon coupon. That way, you’re building up your affiliate loyalty. The next time you ask them to promote, subconsiously, they’ll say yes.

Post your comments and let me know what you think

That’s what John Reese famously said. Banner ads are the most overlooked goldmine on the internet when it comes to traffic generation.

So what are banner ads?

Banner ads are are basically those images you see on websites. They use to be very popular during the dot-com boom. During the dot-com boom, whenever you go to a website, you’ll always see a lot of flashy banners over the place. But after the dot-com boom busted, banner ads became really ineffective. It was said to have a very low click-through-rate, when in fact, it is quite effective.

Most advertisers stay away from banner ads because of its poor reputation and poor effectiveness. But actually, it’s one of the best way of getting dirt cheap visitors - ideal for those on a budget. I still remember during dot-com boom where banner ads soared as high as 100 per 1000 impressions (CPM), but since the dot-com boom busted, a lot of people left behind the idea of using banner advertisements.

And now you can get banner ads dirt cheap, dirt dirt cheap, as low as just $0.2 per 1000 impressions. Some excellent banner advertisement sites you can go to are:

• http://www.valueclickmedia.com
• http://www.hahapaymenowptc.com
• http://adwords.google.com
• http://www.1800banners.com

You can also use banner networks, which are quite effective as well. You are just basically swapping banner impressions with another banner advertisers. So if you display 1000 impressions on your website, then your banner ads will be displayed on other people’s website for 1000 impressions. It is like swapping in a network.

Unlike pay-per-click marketing, banner ads are paid dependent om impressions, in other words, the number of times it is displayed. So the higher the click-through-rate, the less money you need to pay per visitor. So how can you get a high click-through-rate?

Interestingly enough, the most effective banners actually use words. They are images as file, but the images has words on it. Some words you can use to boost your click-through-rate:

• views
• how to
• discover
• secrets
• new

Reverse psychology also works quite good. For example, “Don’t click on here unless you want to make money.”

Lets talk about where you can banners designed and made for you. You can get it outsourced at places like:

• http://www.rentacoder.com
• http://www.guru.com
• http://www.scriptlance.com

I’ll talk more about outsourcing in another post - if I get enough comments or requests

You can also use photoshop or flash and make it yourself. Since it is just words, it should be quite simple to make it.

Let’s recap on what banners ads are: banner ads are just image advertisements that were once really popular during dot com boom, and now has been left behind and forgotten.

Post your comments and let me know what YOU think about banner advertising

Stanley Tang

Technorati Tags: internet marketing strategies, banner advertising, banner ads, traffic generation, internet marketing, make money online

1. Pay-Per-Click
2. Banner Advertising
3. Ezine Advertising
4. Text Links
5. Leads (co-registration)
6. Offline Marketing
7. TV, Radio & Podcasts Advertising
8. Newspaper Advertising
9. Word of Mouth Referrals
10. Paid Inclusion
11. Traffic Packages
12. Classified Ads
13. Cost-Per-Action
14. Search Engine Optimization
15. Article Marketing
16. Affiliate Programs
17. Press Release
18. Directories
19. Forum Marketing
20. Email Signature
21. Shopping Sites
22. Shareware-Download Sites
24. Traffic Exchange
25. Banner Exchange
26. Link Exchange
27. CPA Networks
28. Affiliate Networks
29. Desktop Messaging
30. Contests & Races
31. Tele Seminars & Conferences
32. Write Testimonials
33. Surveys
34. Create a Product
35. Expired Domains
36. Exit Traffic
37. Myspace
38. Google, Yahoo & AOL Groups
39. Facebook
40. Social Bookmarking
41. Blogging
42. Video Sites
43. Podcasting
44. Content Sites
45. Wikipedia & Wikihow
46. Yahoo Answers
47. Return traffic
48. List Building
49. Viral Traffic
50. Joint Ventures
51. Product Launches
52. Cross Promotion (Integration Marketing)
53. Giveaway Events & Bonuses
54. Freebies For List Owners

Technorati Tags: internet marketing strategies, traffic generation strategies, increase website traffic, website traffic, traffic generation

Here’s a cool product I just finished going through, and I highly recommend you to check it out.

http://kgvtang.diamondseo.hop.clickbank.net (yes, it’s an affiliate link)

It’s an fantastic course on traffic generation, and Ross Goldberg goes through some really effective web 2.0 techniques that will skyrocket your traffic.

Here is what you can expect from The Traffic Manifesto:

• Real methods that have been tested and proven to actually work.

• The secrets behind video marketing, magnetic blogging, podcasting domination, article marketing, PPC Expertise, Google Domination, and so much more!

• A 30 Day Action plan that tells you exactly how to double or even triple the amount of traffic you’re getting in 30 minutes per day or less!

• A Traffic Funnel Mind Map showing you exactly how to integrate specific methods to compound your results and get more visitors faster!

http://kgvtang.diamondseo.hop.clickbank.net