Google Dancin'

Friday night is nearly here, so I’d like to put out an invitation to join us at Live Marketing Chat this Friday at 8:00 pm Eastern (7:00 Central, 6:00 Mountain, and 5:00 Pacific). If you miss us on Friday, the chat also runs on Saturday night (same start time). These chats last until late into the night, and really get going later in the evening. Feel free to drop in at anytime.

Why should you join a marketing chat? Well…

The idea of making your living online can be exciting and seductive, but there are pitfalls. And there’s a lot of misinformation available, some free and some for sale, that can get your business off on the wrong foot.

If you’re new to online marketing, how do you know what is solid information, and what is outdated or black hat tactics that can go so far as to get your site banned from the search engine results? By taking advantage of the experience of successful marketers.

And you’ll find plenty of experienced marketers at LMC, so come and join us.

• Have some fun.
• Make new friends.
• Learn something new.
• Get some fresh ideas.

Live Marketing Chat strives to be a family-friendly environment, so there is a Code of Conduct to follow… Nothing a professional would balk at–but there’s always the “class clown”, so we wrote down the rules.

The main thing to remember is to log in using your First and Last name, as a courtesy to the other folks in the room.  (You don’t need a password.)  We may try to coax you into telling us a bit about yourself, but there won’t be any pressure. You can just hang out and listen if that is more comfortable for you.

I hope to see you there!

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Thanks to TV and movies, many of us have a lopsided view of what an online chat room is. At it’s most basic, a chat room is an online conference whose features are limited by the software and host providing the service. In spite of the potential for abuse, an online chat can be an excellent way for people with a common interest to share information.

I’ve recently been introduced to the world of Internet Marketing Chat Rooms, meeting a number of fellow marketers who are willing to share their successes and their failures for the benefit of the overall community. While no one solution is right for every product or situation, hanging out at a marketing chat room can give you many ideas to test with your site.

But like most things in life, not all marketing chat rooms are created equal.

When A Good Idea Goes Bad

Leaving the details for another time, perhaps, I’d like to share my first experience with a marketing chat room, where I had been invited by a regular member to come in and talk about a project I was working on.

This particular chat was run by two men, let’s call them Pro and Con. After taking the mic and explaining my project and posting the URL, the various members went to the project site, and came back with ideas and suggestions.

Unfortunately, Con owns this particular chat, and monopolized the mic for the most part. While other marketers used the chat window to type in their comments, Con was busy finding fault with everything, from the header graphic (created from a NASA photo… “cheap clip art”) to the background colors, and everything in between. He even “dissed” my professionally created logo, saying I needed to have my logo professionally created!

Pro, on the other hand, when he was able to take the mic, made a number of useful recommendations. It was obvious to me Pro, and the rest of the marketers present, only wanted to help me improve the site.

It turns out that Con had been drinking a lot that night, and once he realized he had chased me away, he told those who were still there that he was “only yanking her chain” to see how I would react. Not very professional of him at all.

All’s Well That Ends Well

It also turns out that my experience was not an isolated incident. At some point, well after my experience, Pro decided he did not want to be associated with the chat owned by Con, so he started his own. I was invited to this new chat and I took a chance.

I’m glad I did. Now you’ll find me there nearly every Friday and Saturday night.

It can be fun, with good-natured banter going back and forth; it can be serious, with site critiques or mastermind quality conversations. While sometimes the moderators need to rein in a participant or two, the overall atmosphere is positive and there is a lot of good marketing information to be found.

Equally important, there is the opportunity to make new friends who understand what you are doing, what you are attempting to create, and what you are going through to reach your goals. Family and friends, while well meaning, can often undermine your efforts with their comments. It’s really helpful to have a place to go that counteracts the negative with positive reinforcement that making an income online is achievable, not only for everyone else, but for you as well.

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A line straight out of the delightful Kevin Costner film, “Field of Dreams”, just doesn’t apply in the online world. Or does it?

I can’t begin to count the number of times I have seen the line quoted, by experts and novices alike, as they point out such a thing only happens in the movies. Having built and marketed web sites since the mid-1990′s, I tend to agree.

So imagine my surprise when I found a site I had yet to develop had received five orders over the summer!

Let’s back up a bit. Nearly two years ago, I decided to sell a product I loved, but couldn’t seem to find from anyone but the manufacturer (who was only selling the product wholesale at the time.) I purchase several cases of the product wholesale, created business card magnets at VistaPrint, and set up an osCommerce install on the new domain. I put up a splash page saying “future home of…” and then started to work on developing my new site.

Shortly after that, I found out I had to have cataract surgery in both eyes.

I had the surgeries, about two weeks apart, and found I was unable to complete any web site work during the recovery period. Staring at the computer monitor was downright painful, especially between surgeries! By the time I was able to work again, I was behind on my obligations. My new web site had to go on the back burner.

Fast-forward to September this year. After having issues with my dedicated server, I upgraded my host managing software to the latest version. While cleaning up the inevitable loose ends, I discovered several emails for this web site I had never finished developing, including the five orders.

I built it. They came. They bought the product.

Does that prove we’ve been wrong all this time? I don’t think so. What I believe this does prove is the right product, with limited availability, will sell itself. With no page rank and only one IBL, (that I know of,) I’m getting traffic from organic search results. And sales.

What is it? Simply Silk™, an organic silk plant cleaner. Simply Silk is superior to any other brand I’ve ever tried, and apparently a lot of other folks feel the same way. (The product description for the 32 oz. bottle was “yada”, I kid you not.) Needless to say, I went in and fixed up the site.

If you want to get an idea of what it looked like “before”, check out the demo of osCommerce. The “after” is a much abbreviated site that only sells Simply Silk, Silk Plant Cleaner.

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