| J:
WHEN YOU FIRST MEET THESE GUYS, YOU'RE INSTANTLY IMPRESSED WITH
HOW LIKEABLE THEY ARE. AND, IN FACT, IF YOU LOOK UP LIKEABILITY
IN A SEARCH ENGINE - THEIR NAME WILL POP UP AT THE TOP OF THE
LIST. BEING LIKEABLE IS SWELL. BUT BEING INTERNET MARKETING EXPERTS
– NOW, THAT'S A MONEY MAKER.
(TAKE IMA
PKG) THERE ARE MILLIONS OF WEBSITES ON THE INTERNET. WHILE AMAZON,
GOOGLE AND MICROSOFT HAVE HUGE I-T AND MARKETING DEPARTMENTS,
THE PLAYING FIELD TO GET YOUR BUSINESS OUT AMONGST 'EM IS GETTING
MORE AND MORE LEVEL - THANKS TO INTERNET MARKETING EXPERTS LIKE
BOBB AND JOSH SOMMERS - FOUNDERS OF THE INTERNET MARKETING ASSOCIATION
- A GLOBALLY BENEFICIAL ENTITY THAT, FORTUNATELY FOR US, IS BASED
RIGHT HERE ON MAUI.
Bob Sommers,
Founder, Internet Marketing Assn.
BS01: "The
Internet Marketing Association is a 100 percent volunteer organization.
It's made up of people who are Internet marketing experts as well
who have a need to know about how this stuff works."
AND WHEN IT
COMES TO BELONGING TO THE INTERBET MARKETING ASSOCIATION, WHO
SHOULD JOIN - AND WHO RECRUITS WHOM - IS IT BOB, OR SON JOSH?
Josh Sommers,
Co-founder, Internet Marketing Association
JS01: "Oddly
they find us. It's word of mouth - lots of word of mouth. The
Java Gyms we do are just informal get-togethers. People just show
up."
BS02: "Which
is kind of an interesting thing we do. Since it's Internet marketing,
most of the stuff we do is on the Internet. But every once in
a while - Josh and I decided that - if we're going to have coffee
somewhere, why not just invite anybody who wants to attend to
come learn something about article marketing or joint venture
marketing. So we send out a quick email and say 'hey, we're going
to be at Starbucks at 7:30 tonight. So if you're interested in
learning about article marketing, come on down. Sometimes we find
that 10, 15, 20 people will show up to learn, and talk and have
discussions about different aspects of Internet marketing."///
AND, OH YEAH,
STARBUCKS SELLS A FEW MORE LATTES, SO THAT'S ANOTHER WIN - AND
THE FACT THAT WE'VE MENTIONED STARBUCKS TWICE- NO -THREE TIMES
NOW, THAT'S RELATIONSHIP MARKETING. YOU START TO GET THE IDEA
THAT THIS STUFF IS PART ROCKET SCIENCE - BUT MOSTLY COMMON SENSE.
AND IT WORKS.
BS03: "We
have a next-door neighbor who owns a legal vacation rental and
he went from no leads a day to 18 leads a day - almost overnight
and he's consistently staying at that rate with one Internet marketing
technique."
Rick Pounds,
Entrepreneur
RP01: "I
was going from zero hits a day about a year and a half ago - and
it was really disturbing because, all of a sudden everything shut
off. And it wasn't just the economy - because other people were
getting business. Then I started to find that once I met with
the association and found out specifics about what I could do
for my business, it really worked out well. All of a sudden, overnight,
I started get the responses I was looking for more and more and
today I'm quite satisfied with what's happening."
GRACE RECORDING
STUDIOS IN SOUTH MAUI IS A SOLAR-POWERED, ALL-DIGITAL, STATE OF
THE ART FACILITY THAT SHOWS UP NUMBER ONE WHEN YOU SEARCH FOR
MAUI RECORDING STUDEIOS IN THE MAJOR SEARCH ENGINES. OWNER BOB
PLOTNIK RAN DOWN THE LIST OF TECHNIQUES HE LEARNED FROM THE INTERNET
MARKETING ASSOCIATION THAT KEEPS HIM ON TOP OF THE LIST.
Bob Plotnik,
Recording Engineer
BP01: "Blogging
has been a good one. Setting up my website so that Google can
access it and their spiders can find you. That's one of the big
factors. Article marketing that we've done and Local Search -
just a ton of techniques that I've learned from them that I would
have probably never learned on my own."
BS03-cont:
///And the interesting thing is there's dozens of ways to generate
business on the Internet: Local Search Marketing, article marketing,
video marketing, joint venture marketing, social bookmarking,
social networking, podcasting, blogging and everything is different
for each business model."///
IT SEEMS OVERWHELMING
TO MANY - INCLUDING THIS REPORTER - TO EVEN TRY TO BECOME AN EXPERT
AT THIS STUFF BECAUSE IT ALL SEEMS TO BE CHANGING SO FAST. BUT
THE YOUNGER SOMMERS PUTS INTO PERSPECTIVE THE REASON WHY YOU WANT
TO IMMERSE YOURSELF IN MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS.
JS02: "It
helps to be involved - intimately - with your project. If, for
example, you're in charge of this, you're going to see it grow
faster, like getting reviews for local search; writing articles
for your exposure on line. Those kinds of things. Only someone
who truly understands their business can do that."
BUT THEN THE
ELDER - AND, DARE WE SAY, WISER, SOMMERS ADDS THE "BUT."
BS04: "The
biggest thing we find, Jeff, is that most people don't have a
clue where to start. They've heard about this they just don't
know 'hey, where do I start?' And - correct me if I'm wrong -
99 percent of them - are going down the wrong path. They just
don't know any better. So one of the great things about the Association
is that we give these folks an opportunity to talk to somebody
that understands all aspects of Internet marketing - to say, 'this
is my business model, this is my goal, what do I need to do?'
So what we do is we get them started in the right direction. Or,
if they're off-track, we get them back on-track."
BUT WAIT,
THE WISDOM OF YOUTH PREVAILS - YOU DON'T HAVE TO SWALLOW ALL OF
THIS WHOLE.
JS03: "No.
No. Absolutely not. One of the things you can do is to take things
in bit-sized chunks. If you can write, there are techniques you
can implement that are very beneficial. If you're comfortable
on video, that's another avenue of Internet marketing you can
employ - video marketing. And there are some people that just
enjoy blogging - short bite-sized kinds of articles ///BS05: We've
discovered here recently is that most businesses in Hawai'i -
the only form of Internet marketing they need is something called
Local Search Marketing. If you've ever looked for a product or
service and you look in Google, Yahoo and Bing, the first thing
you see is a little map. And there's a business listing that shows
up. That has nothing to do with blogging or Search Engine Optimization.
It's one little technique known as Local Search Marketing. Often
times that's all a business owner needs to know. Just that one
thing. And even that can be overwhelming. But when you understand
the process and talk to people that do it, all of a sudden you're
starting to get business without having to do all of the other
things."///
WE SPENT THE
BETTER PART OF AN HOUR TALKING TO BOB AND JOSH SOMMERS ABOUT THE
INTERNET MARKETING ASSOCIATION - AN IDEA THAT HAS SERVED THEM
WELL - APPARENTLY - WELL ENOUGH TO WORK FROM THE POOLSIDE CABANA
IN SOUTH MAUI. WE'VE GOT THE ENTIRE CONVERSATION - FILLED WITH
SOLID GOLD IDEAS AND SUGGESTIONS YOU CAN BEGIN TO EMPLOY TODAY
TOWARD USING THE INTERNET TO SUCCESSFULLY MARKET YOUR BUSINESS.
TO SUMMARIZE, THOUGH, LET'S SAY YOU HAVE A BRAND NEW, PERMIT-GRANTED
BED AND BREAKFAST ON MAUI. HERE'S WHERE YOU START.
BS06: "The
first thing I would encourage you to do is - first of all - sign
up for the Internet Marketing Association. It's free and you have
access to all of these people. Then contact one of the experts
and say, hey, this is what I've done - just like you did - There's
a lot of different ways I can go about this: What do you suggest?
Now if you brought that exact criteria to me, I would suggest
- OK, Jeff, we have experience in that - the only thing you need
to do is this thing we call Local Search. Do y6ou have a website?
No. Fine. You don't need one. Yes? Ok, great, let me show you
some things to do on your website. Most importantly, all you need
to know is on the thing called Local Search. Go t5o the section
on our website on Local Search . Join us for one of our Java Gyms
- we get together for free. If we do have a paid program on Local
Search, we'll let you know about that. If somebody off-island
or on-island is putting on a workshop on Local Search, we'll tell
you about it. But all of the other things - for your business
model - they're not relevant. If you want to lear nm about them,
feel free to do so. But 99 percent of all of your business is
going to come from that one technique."
SEE? COMMON
SENSE. AN APPROACH SO PRACTICAL THAT THE INTERNET MARKETING ASSOCIATION
DECIDED TO TEACH PEOPLE HOW TO USE GOOGLE'S BLOGGER PROGRAM. THE
IMA BECAME SO SUCCESSFUL IN MARKETING THEIR TEACHING TECHNIQUE
THAT - IF YOU SEARCH FOR GOOGLE'S BLOGGER PROGRAM ON GOOGLE, THREE
OF THE TOP FOUR RESPONSES COME FROM THE INTERNET MARKETING ASSOCIATION
AND NOT FROM GOOGLE. HEAR THE REST OF WHAT THESE PLAIN-CLOTHES
VISIONARIES HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THE WAY BUSINESSES WILL TELL THEIR
STORY TOMORROW, NEXT WEEK AND FOR YEARS TO COME. GO TO MAUI TV
NEWS DOT COM AND LOOK FOR THE LINK TO EXTENDED COVERAGE.
A JOAN BAEZ
SONG INCLUDES THE LINE, "TAKE WHAT YOU NEED AND LEAVE THE
REST." AND IT WAS GHANDI WHO OBSERVED THAT THE BEST WAY TO
EAT AN ELEPHANT IS ONE BITE AT A TIME. INTERNET MARKETING IS NOT
A ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL, NOR IS IT COOKIE-CUTTER. IT'S SIMPLE. BUT
IT'S NOT EASY. SO, CONSIDER JOINING THE INTERNET MARKETING ASSOCIATION.
IT'S FREE AND, AS A TIRED OLD COMMERCIAL SAYS, YOU HAVE NOTHING
TO LOSE AND EVERYTHING TO GAIN.
bs07: "Go
to IMA Hawaii - which stands for Internet Marketing Association,
IMAhawaii - dot-
com and just sign up. As soon as you sign up, every week we'll
send you some really cool tips that will help you promote your
business. Now, we have two goals with the Internet Marketing Association.
One is not just to get you to build your website - that really
is a secondary goal. Our primary goal is to get people to buy
whatever it is you're selling. If going to your website is a way
to get there, that's fine. But once you become a member you have
access to people that are experts - people like Josh who just
know this stuff - they do it every day. Call him. Ask us, who's
the best person to talk to with your business model. And we'll
give you - all of these folks - 15 minutes to get you going in
the right direction."///
(ON-CAM TAG)
IF YOU'D LIKE TO JOIN THE INTERNET MARKETING ASSOCIATION RIGHT
NOW, YOU CAN. IT'S FREE AND THEY PROMISE RESULTS PRETTY MUCH IMMEDIATELY
- IF NOT SOONER. TO FIND THEM, GO TO MAUI TV NEWS DOT COM AND
FOLLOW THE LINK TO THIS WEEK'S STORIES. |
