The online marketing industry is overwhelmed with promises to bring about overnight success to your internet business venture, but what can you trust and more importantly, how do you know the difference between valid claims or a scam?

Over the years, my experiences have strengthened my outlook towards my personal success. Although I am very critical of the projects I join, that doesn’t affect my general outlook towards success. I don’t limit my capabilities by numbers (or dollar amounts)–there are certain specific things I know to aim for, but other than that I wholeheartedly welcome success my way.

This concept has essentially crafted my viewpoint(s) surrounding marketing techniques. Here are a couple of guidelines to consider to adapt and optimize your knowledge for your future marketing efforts.

Top 5 Myths of Online Marketing

5. There’s No Such Things As “Honest Marketing”

-Don’t confuse this statement with the idea that all marketers are utilizing malicious techniques to bring about success–in fact, if you truly believe that then marketing is not the avenue for you. Marketing is a game of words, meaning, and influence. It is your duty to portray your product as the best and most innovative product on the market–whether it truly is or it isn’t (but doesn’t it help if it is).

If marketing was “honest” then the pharmaceutical industry would certainly be out of business. Instead, they push drugs that took several hundreds of million of dollars to bring to the market, only to have them recalled for drug-related deaths a year later. You don’t make a marketing statement by saying that your product or service is “okay;” you make a statement and more importantly profit by calling it the best in the industry with supporting facts.

4. Copy Your Way To Success

- The top gurus in anything you’re interested in wouldn’t make any money if they told you that the key to success is bringing uniqueness to your field. Instead, they have crafted their ebooks and best sellers with information specifically geared for you to follow their process with biased strategies leading to biased results.
Although some marketing techniques can be applied to a wide spectrum of industries, their effectiveness differs. Knowing which techniques are best for you is just a part of playing the game of marketing.

3. It Takes Years For Online Success

- Online success is determined or achieved by a number of different variables: industry, niche, and marketing campaign. I see a lot of internet entrepreneurs becoming disgruntled because success seems impossible. If this is the case, then you need to take a good look at your current marketing plan, or make sure you start one. Being interested in the graphic design industry has opened my eyes to how quickly anyone can grow their site but how much industry plays a big part in drawing in readers.

I think typically speaking, it’s harder to grow the popularity of a website if its in the business/making money online industries. Personally, unless these blogs offer advice unachievable by their competition–they usually result in mediocre posts and boring reads.

2. Traditional Marketing Ideas Don’t Work

- This is actually the idea that inspired today’s post. I recently read on John Chow’s blog that he received press from a newspaper. The comments on the post began to annoy me when I realized that many people found traditional marketing efforts weak and ineffective. The truth is, if you’re marketing efforts fail in anything you do–it has to do with your approach and how right that approach is for you, moreover someone’s incompetence to get useful results from their marketing is only a fault of their own–not the technique. Many people have become really big-headed thinking that they know enough about online marketing that they can dispute traditional marketing concepts.

However, all online marketing is rooted in traditional marketing concepts. For instance, social networking online stems from when people actually do it in person at events. Webinars are online seminars, and article marketing offline has been used by many companies to submit articles and press releases related to their products to national publications. Technically, none of it is that new, it’s just that technology has significantly aided in the process of getting faster results rather than pen and paper.

So do yourself a favor, first research the topic of marketing itself in its general form before venturing into specified strategies leading to either wasted time/money or failure.

1. There Are “Secrets” To Success

- There are no rules to how you can achieve success in marketing, and furthermore there are no secrets to success. What has happened is that there is knowledge that is widely known by people, and information that only a minute population is aware of. So somehow this has transformed to the idea that there are secrets to making a lot of money. However, having secrets is purely a marketing gimmick. This doesn’t mean that the product is of less quality, it just means that its creator is using common marketing terminology to promote it.

The reason why I bring this up and it’s so important to me, is that people always want to put up an excuse or limitations for why they aren’t where they want to be in their life. And I understand, sometimes it’s so hard to hold yourself accountable but the day you do is the day you’ll learn what you’re doing wrong. Success is about growth, and you’re not going to have significant growth without discovery. So, set your ego aside on the table, reevaluate the situation, make plans to take action, and then finally–just do it.

1.5 You Have To Love What You Do To Be Successful

- How many celebrities can you name who are worth millions of dollars and yet seem to have every problem in the world? Although loving what you do makes it easier to do it, it’s not what is going to bring about success. So many gurus have exhausted this concept that is has made beginners think that its the holy grail to success.

Here’s a question–are you even good at what you love? American Idol is a prime example of a person who can love to sing but then gets torn to pieces by Simon Cowell because they can’t carry a note. We all want to achieve this “fairytale” of being self sufficient and self reliant, but again, you have to hold yourself accountable and evaluate your strengths and weaknesses.

You don’t need to love something to be successful, you just have to be great at it.

What Myths Can You Think Of

You think there are any myths about online marketing that I’ve left out? Comment and discuss…

Be sure to Subscribe to my RSS for for more updates and discussion about online marketing!

<3 Love Ya!
-Mel

Here you will find all the videos that are currently on my YouTube Channel..AWalkInMyShoes
Follow my journey in my pursuit to happiness and success and subscribe to my channel.

I will also soon begin adding the reasons for why I created my videos and what I was thinking when I made them. So Stay Tuned!

Create a .gif animation from video using Adobe Photoshop

In this tutorial you will learn how I created a .gif animation from one of my recent Sin City inspired YouTube videos.

Tools needed:
Adobe Photoshop CS3 (earlier version should be compatible)
Basic knowledge of Photoshop

If you want to see this effect, I’ve uploaded it onto my myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/awimstv

Link to my YouTube video with this effect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxW5Xjqf1h4

Create a Sin City Inspired Effect using Adobe After Effects

In this tutorial, you will learn how I created this Sin City
inspired effect (emphasis on inspired I understand it may not look exactly like the Sin City movie) using Adobe After Effects CS3.

Tools needed:
Adobe After Effects CS3 (earlier version should be compatible)
Basic knowledge of AE

Note: My current screen recorder is..!@#!$#@$ and it really isn’t giving justice to the footage or the programs used. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Learn how to create a .gif animation from this video footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3MhUZCnk6E

Link to my YouTube video with this effect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxW5Xjqf1h4

Add me on Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/awimstv

White

Date Uploaded:February 09, 2009
Description:
This video is basically my way of summing up the events of the last couple of weeks, which lead to the dissolution of my company.

“White
The color of, purity, honesty.
And in a world with such hatred and corruption,
the one thing we could ever hope for
is the security which exists in pure honesty.
And yet, such simple things, result in
dissolving dreams.”

Shoe-o-logue:
My regular (non-tutorial) videos will feature a short themed monologue which is influenced by the current pair of shoes I’m wearing.

Effects:
I edited this video using Adobe After Effects CS3
This is my first video using the program, so I’m sure……I’ll
get all kinds of feedback.

Learn how to create this same Sin City inspired video effect
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAUhktokwlw

Add me on Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/awimstv

Create a Gif Animation

Date Uploaded:November 03, 2008
Description:This Small Business Tutorial brought to you by AWalkInMyShoes.

Create a gif animation to display as an advertisement on your website or social networking site. Follow these steps and you’re on your way to creating a quick and easy advertisement for your site.

Tools you’ll need,
Adobe Photoshop (I use CS3)
and some basic knowledge of Photoshop

My Video Resume

Date Uploaded:November 02, 2008
Description:This is the original video I made to get the attention of Life’s Good, Inc. CEO Robert Stinson.

Intro to AWalkInMyShoes

Date Uploaded:November 02, 2008
Description:This is the original introduction to my channel, AWalkInMyShoes, a series of videos following my journey, Melody Nieves, while I was a young entrepreneur in the financial industry.