1734 readersThose of you who subscribe to the Internet Marketing for Smart People email newsletter found out on Monday what Brian and I have been up to for the past few months.
We knew it would be cool, because, well, we designed it to be cool.
We wanted to build something people would really get value from.
But still,
2712 readersDarren Rowse doesn’t make his money from Problogger. Brian Clark doesn’t make his money from Copyblogger. Chris Brogan doesn’t make his money from his blog, either. Neither does Sonia Simone. Not a single founding member of Third Tribe earns the bulk of their income from the blogs that are practically (or in Brogan’s case, literally)
2824 readersA little more than a year ago, we tried out a new idea. What if there was an online community where you could learn cutting-edge online marketing — without compromising your ideals or turning into some kind of internet hype machine? What if you could listen in on some of the blogging world’s most successful
4135 readersOver the last 4 years, I’ve launched several companies from this simple blog of mine. The idea that building an audience with content and letting the revenue-generating ideas, products, and services reveal themselves based on what the audience actually wants has worked out amazingly well. It’s become a full-fledged business model. And yet, there’s a
2119 readersI don’t kill people for money (I do that for free).
I’m not wanted in 17 countries.
And I don’t ride on a steel horse.
But by many standards, I’m somewhat of a mercenary.
It started a few years ago, when I cut my teeth online by playing around in the internet marketing game.
Before I’d heard of Brian Clark,
2222 readersDo you know this story?
A scorpion needs to cross the river. He asks a friendly-looking frog to carry him across.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” asks the frog. “You’re a scorpion. You’ll sting and kill me.”
“No I won’t,” says the scorpion. “That would be completely against my self interest. If I sting you, I’ll
3103 readersWhen I talk with “normal” businesspeople (you know, the kind who have actual physical addresses, not just IP ones), they always ask me the same thing.
“I can see the appeal of that Twitter stuff for my teenage daughter — but how is it supposed to help my business?”
Of course, you know the answer to this
4396 readersHow many times have your heard them say that? They said it in 2007. They said it in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Maybe they’re right. When you’re promoting a business, or a cause, or an idea with online content … It’s content marketing. Blogging? That’s just a hobby, right? So go ahead and ramp up
9297 readers
Can regularly publishing relevant, useful, entertaining and valuable information online actually build a business over time?
Or, is this whole content marketing thing just a massive waste of energy?
You can probably guess where we stand on these questions, but in this episode we lay it all out anyway. You, of course, can make your own decisions.
Also,
5145 readersWhat’s the first thing any business with a website needs? Traffic, right? Without it, you’re dead in the water. Your site design might be amazing. Your content might be useful and entertaining. Your salesmanship might be brilliant. But if no one’s visiting your pages, you’ve thrown a great party that no one showed up for.