Three Golden Rules of Online Success

Watch this video to learn:
•    Three golden rules of Internet marketing
•    The fastest, easiest way to test your offers
•    How “good karma” can boost your bottom line

According to Jay Berkowitz, author of Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing Workbook, “it’s a little bit of art and a little bit of science.”

As CEO of TenGoldenRules.com, a highly successful Internet marketing consulting firm, Berkowitz is, of course, talking about his favorite topic—Internet marketing.

“The art,” he adds, “is in the copywriting, the design of the page.  The science is about tracking the numbers on what’s getting clicks, what’s getting conversion.”

Which brings Berkowitz to Rule #1—namely, “there are no rules.” Relative to traditional marketing, where Berkowitz started years ago, working for McDonald’s Restaurants and then Coca-Cola, the Internet is still a veritable free-for-all. “Coming from the offline world, you can think you can apply some of the rules from offline.” But offline marketing formulas are rarely relevant online—hence Berkowitz’s “no rules” rule.

To bring efficiency, and, most importantly, profitability, to the process, you must “test, measure, iterate, change, evolve, test, measure.” That testing and measuring—the “science” of Internet marketing—is ideally a process that becomes a routine part of everyday business, as it is for those who achieve ongoing success in Internet marketing.

The good news, Berkowitz adds, is that “you can get very quick and very accurate results in testing online.” Ideally, he says, you’re always running a simultaneous test between two different versions of something, like comparing results from two different offers.

“The fastest way to test is with Google pay-per-click ads” that lead to landing pages. For example, one offer might be “Buy this product and get <this> for free as a bonus.”  The other offer might be, “Buy this product today and get 30 percent off.”  Each offer would have its own landing page. “Within two, three, four days, you get a pretty good indication of which offer is working better,” explains Berkowitz.

And to make the most of each and every testing campaign, “while your Google pay-per-click campaign is running, you’re also testing different ad keyword phrases.” As a result, you learn which offer converts at a higher rate and which keywords get the most clicks. Because online testing results are available so quickly, he adds, your marketing campaigns “get smarter and more profitable by the day.”

Berkowitz’s second rule is about cultivating “good karma”—specifically, how to accomplish that with social media. “Really great networkers will tell you that great networking is about helping people,” he begins. Social networking follows this same principle. “The people who are going to be very successful in LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook are the people who are really listening to what their friends are looking for and then fulfilling that need,” he explains. When you do this consistently over time, “the good karma really comes back to you… if you help someone, that law of reciprocity” eventually kicks in and benefits you. The caveat, Berkowitz adds, is never to “give with the expectation of getting something back.” Help people because you enjoy it, and over time you will see that same good will coming back to you.

Berkowitz’s third rule is also the best advice he can offer anyone in Internet marketing. Per Nike’s infamous tag line, “just do it,” he adds. Start with a blog, then get a domain name for your business, and direct your blog readers to your domain. It’s an important first step in “building your own asset,” he asserts.

“Stop thinking about,” starting your online business, he concludes, and get the process underway. With time, he says, “you’ll see that good things will come to you.”

Wise words from a man who has both witnessed his own online success, and engineered the Internet marketing success of dozens of clients.