Whoever said knowledge is power, was wrong.
Way too many people read a few online marketing books, and then figure they know everything there is to know in those books just because they read them. And then at a certain point they stop buying any more books, because they know everything. But guess what? They don't practice any of it. And then they wonder why they're not making any money marketing online.
I'm going to let you in on a big secret. Until you actually do something with what you learn, you haven't really learned anything. If that's you, you would do well to go out of your way to buy as many books, courses, tapes etc. as you possibly can, until you feel so stupid for learning the same things over and over again . . . or you go so broke . . . you're finally forced to get off your duff and do something with all that "knowledge." Good grief!
You would be flabbergasted and stunned at the amount of money spent each year on marketing books, tapes, CDs, etc, that never get read, much less acted upon. The number is mind blowing. Everyone is looking for the silver bullet. Well, I've got news for you—it's probably sitting right under your nose, on your book shelf, or on your hard drive somewhere right now, and you just don't know it. You're blind to it until one day you see the same old tired idea presented in a slightly different light, and aha!
Finally you get it.
Finally your mind puts those pieces together in a way that inspires action. Was it due to some brilliant wordsmith who reached deep into your cranium and pulled some levers and switches until you suddenly became an online marketing genius actually capable of doing something? Probably not. It was the repeated exposure to a very simple but subtle idea, viewed from a variety of different angles until you finally got it. You finally understood what you needed to do to twist it just so . . . so it would work, for you!
Here's the crux of the biscuit.
Until you commit any of the material you think you're actually learning to "long term" memory—to the point that you can prattle it off instantly when your spouse wakes you up in the middle of the night—you don't have it. What you think you know doesn't mean squat. Why? You're just too slow. You're not commercially adept, because you have to "think" about what you're doing.
How do you become unconsciously competent, and therefore, "commercially adept"?
3 Steps to Online Marketing Competence!
1 - You have to get off you butt and try more things, with the understanding that you could very well fail. In marketing, there is no such thing as failure, only feedback. Put some skin in the game. Spend some time, put some money on the line, and chock it up to education. There is nothing like taking a little risk to supercharge your synapses, and burn those marketing lessons into your brain. Nothing.
But it's all worthless unless you . . .
2 – Ruthlessly track your results. There is absolutely no point in taking the aforesaid step without first putting a mechanism in place to measure results, and I'm not just talking about sales. For the first little while, you may well be focusing almost exclusively on clicks, or opt-ins, or time on page.
As long as you do something with what you learn, that's okay. Don't be discouraged if at first you are disappointed with the results. Just take the feedback, and tweak your little experiments until they start moving in the right direction.
3 – Develop some tricks that allow you to internalize what you learn more effectively and quickly. For example, if you buy an ebook, instead of just reading it, you can create a mind map out of each chapter. Instead of just reading great sales letters and marketing pieces, you can copy them out in your own handwriting and read them aloud.
And before you study anything, take a few deep breaths and remember "Why" you are learning it by visualizing that brand new house or car that you're after. The more of your senses you can involve, and the more you expose yourself to proven concepts and ideas (presented in a variety of different ways), the sooner you will have committed the lessons contained to long term memory.
It's a virtuous cycle. The more you do, the more you commit to long term memory, and the more you commit to long term memory, the more you do, until one day you're marketing in your sleep—and snoozing all the way to the bank!
©2007, Daniel Levis
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Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant and direct response copywriter based in Toronto, Canada and publisher of the world famous copywriting anthology "Masters of Copywriting" featuring the marketing wisdom of 42 of the world's greatest copywriters, including Clayton Makepeace, Joe Sugarman, Joe Vitale, Bob Bly, and dozens more! For a Free excerpt, visit the link http://tinyurl.com/3c8www
