experiences,internet,marketing marketing My experiences of internet marketing with no knowledge and a

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Four years ago I was a total "computer dummy", noteven knowing how to turn one on (a computer, I mean!).However, fortunately I developed associations withsome "computer geeks", who suggested marketing myvarious books on the internet. This subsequentlydeveloped into on-line creative writing courses (thefirst one was free and I was completely overwhelmedand going broke fast), which have been verysuccessful. In spite of a huge amount of time and effort put in,our first attempts at marketing products wereminimally successful. As "newbies" we tried the usual techniques: search engines (all of them withautomatic submissions), web rings, banners, links(with sites getting fewer hits than ourselves), freeclassifieds and a guest book - all with very limitedsuccess. (I never did try newsgroups). However, allwe got was other "internet pros" trying to sell ussomething (we still get that many times daily - trash bin). Fortunately, we had no money to spend onpromotion, so capital was not wasted. With our"learners plates" on, this was all done on two"freebie sites" (Geocities and Tripod). However, thesteep learning curve and persistence gave us a greatdeal of new knowledge regarding internet marketing. Things changed drastically once we got our own domain at NZ Enterprise.com (with Webcom), and suddenly all our sites got listed with Yahoo, as well as all themajor search engines. Must have been the PERCEPTIONthat we were "successful" and "bigger" than we were.Image is everything (as in life!). It also helpedhaving quite a unique product in getting a highranking ("creative writing courses"). Eureka, Hooray! Incidentally, we submitted to Yahoo (Australia andNew Zealand); so I suggest you try the regional Yahoo, rather than their main database. We also get quite a few hits from some of the lesser known S/E's (seeeven I'm learning the internet terminology!), likeLooksmart, Snap and Northern Light. ( we also triedGo To http//:www.goto.com, but with limited success).The traffic to our various sites started increasingsubstantially and sales started materialising. Mostly,our creative writing courses and money managementcourses, but a few books too. Incidentally, we do all our marketing on-line; buthope to do some off-line too as more money comes in.We are presently getting 200 hits a day plus, and sales most weeks. Whilst sales are still nothinglike we would like (and I realise it's much harder tosell products on-line than off-line), they are increasing fast.We started to make a small profit after 18 months on-line and sales a have increased substantially since then ! As part of our marketing strategy to INCREASE TRAFFIC,I do a lot of submitting articles on self developmentand writing to e-zines (extracts from my books) andthis has been the main focus of our marketingstrategy. We've found submitting my various articles (with a resource box at the bottom of each article)to ezines and publishers who bring publishers andwriters together, has made a big difference ingetting our sites noticed - in terms of both "hits"and SALES. It's FREE ADVERTISING AT ITS MOSTEFFECTIVE. Living in a small isolated " city" of 30000 peoplenear the bottom of the world with , made us realisethe tremendous benefits of distributing usefulinformation around the world at minimal cost via thewww. I truly believe e-commerce is the way of thefuture (especially for geographically isolated, likeus). Also I started this one man business with NOcapital (just one or two "very clever" friends withtechnical expertise) in the most economicallydeprived region of "little old New Zealand". This has now developed to 3 people working (and having heapsof fun) in "Sleepy Hollow", together with an American associate. I believe an idea, a big helping ofenthusiasm, together with a great deal of time andeffort in implementing it, belief, faith in yourselfand persistence (not necessarily in that order) isthe key to internet marketing success. Having little capital can be a blessing in your internet marketing efforts, as it makes us resourcefulthrough relying our initiave. A final word to sum up...Do the basics, then "hang in there, mate" (as goodKiwis, New Zealanders say) and the results willsurely come. Hope this helps and all the best in your internet marketing strategy Craig Lock About the author:Craig Lock is an author of numerous books and the creator of the ORIGINAL online creative writing course. He has been writing for the past "lucky" seven years. Craig has had five books published on various subjects with another 12 manuscripts being published and market-ed on the internet. He started the "ORIGINAL" (and still highly successful) online creative writing course.http://www.nzenterprise.com/writer/creative.htmlCraig's various books are available from:http://www.novelty-gift.com/or http://www.nzenterprise.com/writer/books.html Article Tags: Creative Writing Courses, Internet Marketing, Creative Writing, Writing Courses