Over the past couple years, information marketers have come under greater scrutiny by the United States Federal Trade Commission. The FTC has taken several companies and individuals to task for deceptive Internet marketing practices. As the largest seller of information products online, Clickbank.com is now issuing clearer guidelines for the types of products and/or marketing practices that will be more closely scrutinized going forward. In other words, they are going to be working harder to... Continue Reading

How many times have you shopped at a store or eaten at a restaurant and been invited to take a customer service survey. Usually these survey opportunities are presented by the clerk or waiter who points out a web site at the bottom of your receipt. I have never paid attention to these in the past and often find them to be a nuisance. Sure, Target claims to give away $5000 gift cards. But who... Continue Reading

I recently wrote a few articles that created quite a bit of response from my readers. Where is the Integrity in Internet Marketing? challenged many of the all-too-common tactics used by unscrupulous marketers. I invited my readers to share their thoughts and experiences related to these issues, and the comments that followed were both insightful and instructional. Let's face it. When it comes to selling a product or service, marketing approaches are all over the... Continue Reading

You've hopefully heard that the point of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook isn't just to amass followers. You could have totally healthy numbers and still not see much of a return in terms of sales or clicks or engaged readers. So if the goal isn't just numbers, what is it? Some of the signposts that you are doing things right: People retweet your tweets. People comment on your blog posts and on other... Continue Reading

While I have been doing business online since 1995, I entered the Internet marketing arena in 2005. When I began selling an ebook detailing my strategies for making money with websites using Google AdSense, I found myself at the forefront of the marketplace. In the years that followed, I was sucked into a swirling vortex of product launches, live events and teleseminars. I met many other Internet marketers and developed relationships with some. Over the... Continue Reading

Death. Now there's a way to start a blog entry! It's been said by Steven Covey that we should "begin with the end in mind." Well, it doesn't get any more "end" than death, does it? At least as far as our lives on earth are concerned. We live in a culture that is death-averse. We are fascinated with concepts of the afterlife, but death itself is a horrible thing that we'd rather not look... Continue Reading

It's not always easy to put yourself out there and develop the online presence that is going to be so essential for the success of your business. If exposing yourself and your ideas to the unwashed Internet masses sounds like a nightmare of privacy concerns and defenselessness, you are definitely not alone. But, counter-intuitive as this may sound, in the end it doesn't have to be about you. Instead of hiding behind your fear, start... Continue Reading

The following email was sent to me by one of the creators of The Internet Marketing World Cup. I told them I would consider updating my previous blog entry based on what he shared with me. After further consideration, I thought I would just let IMWC's point-of-view speak for itself. With that said, here is the entire email sent to me. It is thoughtful and I admire the IMWC team for proactively contacting me and... Continue Reading

Earlier this year I received a Facebook message from a person representing a well-known author and speaker who has done quite well in the infomercial space. I was told their group was interested in meeting with me to explore the possibility of creating an infomercial that would feature me and teach people about the opportunity for making money on the Internet. Now I have received calls similar to this many times before. Usually it turns... Continue Reading

(Written by guest contributor Chris Harper) Several weeks ago, we posted an article about the new YouTube Show & Tell channel that highlighted some of the more creative uses of the video giant's site. And now, after watching some of those examples and finding ourselves in need of a new angle to promote our newest iPhone app, I present to you the Sergeant Gun YouTube experience. It's not just a video, it really is an... Continue Reading

It's hard to adequately stress the importance of focus and purpose on your website. Since you are reading the Top One Report, we're going to assume that you have a website, or lots of websites, or are at the very least planning to have a website. We look at a lot of sites here at InfoMedia in our work with entrepreneurs like you. Many times we have opened a site from a customer or associate... Continue Reading

When it comes to social media, it's not the numbers that count. You can have a Facebook page with tens of thousands of fans and a Twitter timeline with millions of followers, but if those people aren't interacting with you, you're not doing a thing. Continue Reading

There has been a lot of discussion and controversy related to tactics marketers use to get people to take action. Much of the controversy is related to a method called "forced continuity." This is where buyers will sign up for a trial or shipping-only price offer, and end up in a monthly billing program that they may or may not be aware of. Over the years I have seen it all. There's nothing wrong with... Continue Reading

We've all heard about the death of print media; the death of print and display advertising as we know it. Today's consumers are so savvy that they have become virtually impervious to ads. They can stream their TV without ads, they can listen to satellite radio without ads, and they can spot traditional forms of display ads from a mile away, and subsequently ignore them. Continue Reading