In my opinion, one of the best ways to learn marketing is by “stalking” the experts.
Now let me be very quick to say here that I don’t mean physically following them around, finding out where they live, etc! And while I would love to claim credit for the term, I first heard Joel Christopher use the phrase.
What I mean is, learn how to market and run your business by watching how someone who is already successful is doing it.
It is a given that the best way to learn how to do something is by learning directly from an expert. It significantly cuts down on the time and expense it takes to master the topic, and stops you from going off on the wrong track.
Online there are many opportunities for learning from others. There are newsletters and sites that offer interviews with people who are already successful. There are teleseminars where you can listen to experts talking over the phone or the web. You can pay for a consultation, or perhaps be lucky enough to convince an expert to be your mentor.
Finally, of course, you can buy their ebooks.
But, it is almost a given that the experts aren’t revealing *all* of their secrets. They may not even be holding back intentionally – it is possible they have forgotten to mention a small but crucial thing that they do, which makes all the difference in their business.
But if you watch how they work, you can learn a lot.
How do they structure their web site and/or sales letter? How do they entice you to sign up to their lists?
If they run a newsletter, how do they put it together? How do they get their personality across?
How do they promote new products? Are they sending out special mailings (and if so, how often), or doing it inside their newsletter?
Do they offer ecourses, and if so how are they structured? Do they refer to other courses, products, etc that they offer?
What about their follow-up process? Admittedly this means that you have to buy their product, but this may not be a bad thing (you can see how they put together their order process – and hopefully whatever you are buying is good too!). How do they follow up with you? When and how do they offer new products to you, or freebies, or additional information?
Where do they advertise? How do they advertise? If they run an affiliate program, how do they attract affiliates? What additional information do they provide their affiliates to sell their products (and how can you do something similar to sell your own products).
Now it won’t be possible to find out *everything* your chosen expert does. And you can’t just copy what you learn exactly – you will need to modify it to suit your situation.
But you should be able to get a good idea of how they work. And you will gain valuable insights into methods you can apply to your own online business.
Copyright 2003 Jason Anderson
Jason is the editor of Achieve Net Profits, where he interviews successful Internet marketers each week. Save yourself time and money by learning marketing directly from the pros! –> http://www.AchieveNetProfits.com/
