Marketing - The Big Picture

byDesShinnick

966 followers

Updated 10 years ago

Marketing - The Big Picture

Sometimes in life we get in the space where we can't see the wood for the trees. I've been mindful of that. It seems there is a lot of direction to seeing the wood here.

Is it useful to see the wood and at the same time be able to see the forest of trees, taking a meta look at what we’re doing, the big picture, the plan? I’ve had the big picture in mind, wanting to figure that out. That’s evolved over a few weeks and this is where I got to. My wanderings so far.

Changes at Google

I blogged on Changes at Google. Talking with people in the IM (Internet Marketing) industry I’m left with the clear impression that seasoned marketers understand where google is wanting to go and are building sites for that. When I say google I assume all search engines. They are wanting to provide their clients with useful information.

My Marketing Options

Build Authorative Sites - sites that combine groups of products whether my own or affiliates where the substantial collection of pages make the site an authority. So this is a bigger site representing several sub groups with several optin pages.

Build Product Specific Sites for paid traffic (paid traffic can also be used above). - These sites would be for specific products that did not fit an Authorative site. SEO would not be so important here. Paid funnels driving traffic would be key. Two rules for me right now are;

1/ Ideally Paid Ads would need to be so niche that the only people that clicked were buyers.

2/ If driving a bigger group for click through and list building, have a super low cost starter product to a least pay for the ad.

I still have much to learn here.

What's the best use of my time?

I’ve listed several tasks I can do and my perceptions of ability to do them based on skill, desire to do them, and quality of the finished product.

• Working on the Big Picture
• IM
• Understanding the Structure of the Business
• Creating Websites 2/10
• SEO 4/10
• Writing content 6/10
• Blogging 3/10
• Writing articles 3/10
• IM 4/10
• Working on the Big Picture 8/10
• Understanding plug-ins 3/10
• Knowing which products to use 4/10
• Understanding the structure of the business 6/10
• Analysis 2/10
• Product creation 8/10 (my own products already mstly built)

To master these I have a way to go. I’m not good at some of these, some don’t interest me and some take too much time. So where should I spend my time? I want to do what will get me down this path the fastest and earn me the most;

• Working on the Big Picture
• IM
• Understanding the Structure of the Business
• Analysis
• SEO

These earn me the most money, ensure I understand what is going on and get me up and running the fastest.

The Team

I’ve been building a small team. I have very little money to spend on this. The team so far are;

Branson (my son) - he’s learning the WA stuff. He will do work for me and do his own thing. He has a job offer from me when he’s learned what to do.

Axxxx - solo mum who has a facebook page and internet blog. She can’t get work during the day due to very young kids but can work from 8-12 midnight. She’s my blogger, researcher, article writer, social media person. We’re doing a trade of services then beyond that I pay. After the trial phase I will make a decision about partnering with her and giving away a % of earnings.

Axxxx - a lady who is meticulus with records, enjoys writing, has a strong work ethic and is wanting part time work. Research, article writing, other tasks that I currently do to free up my time. I have committed a budget for x hours per week for her.

Cxxxx - website builder. We’ve loosely partnered. He’s also building a passive income through affiliate marketing. We both have different paths. At this time the cooperation works really well for us. He’s going to be building my wordpress sites intitially at very low cost. This is a short term arrangment. He is not my web development guy going forward. He is wanting to work on affiliate marketing only.

X - not yet found. A Web developer that is super good at this stuff. I am willing to hand off a % of the business or to come to some arrangement. I am looking for no upfront cost. I have a prospect that I will meet next week.

Z - not yet found. A brilliant internet marketer. Again happy to give up a %.

Learning

I have found a few resources and places to learn for free and others at a cost. I have 3 key sites that I was evaluating and yesterday decided to drop one. I am keeping WA Premium and one other site. I think they are both worth it. I plan to continue to check on other resources from time to time.

I have a small file of sites that have been recommended. I make a small time commitment once in a while to check a site and decide whether to discard it keeping useful learnings, or whether to add them into my core learning sites. My ongoing limit is 3 sites of which no more than 2 are paid.WA is a key site to keep. I am subscribed to free marketing from other great IMr’s so I get to observe their email stream and sales process.

Are we there yet?

I’m making progress. I have a complete business model that I am happy with. It’s in diagram form and generally specific. I have plans for 2015 and 2016. I am meeting my minimum 12 hour per week time commitment and closer to 30 hours at present (so much to learn). I will be able to sustain my commitment for the next 12 months. Now it’s time to start building pages. Will that be when the real learning begins?

I have my primary site that I want to build around. I expect that to be a 200 plus page site. I have a growing list of product site ideas and authoritative site ideas. As they come to mind they go on the list and just sit there till they get attention. I will be doing some smaller product sites for learning. My key product site is planned for 2016.

How Detailed is the Plan?

It’s not detailed. There is a plan of what the business would look like. There are guesses at what will happen this year and next. Beyond that I don’t believe in detailed planning. You never know where the road goes. Sometimes it’s better to just start walking, know where you want to go and seeing what comes as you travel down the path.

I know the first two pieces I,m making. The first is on Lisps. It’s small, a great place to learn about the IM business and something I remove for 90% of clients in a two sessions. While I build this I need to decide the next piece to be built so that I can keeping moving forward. As long as I do this actively, and quickly and plan the next piece or two ahead, all should go well.

So now I’m in the forest, planting trees, pruning, trimming all the while holding my map so I know where I am and where I’m going. I don’t know where the path will go as I take this journey. I have an idea where it will take me in a year or two and that’s all I need to know.

I am mindful that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step motorcycle. :)