January 17, 2009 By

Pictures from The January 2009 Mastermind

Among all the other mastermind sessions we’ve had so far, I think yesterday’s mastermind was different. It felt different somehow, as the members are probably pretty good friends by now.

It felt more laid back and relaxed, and there was more discussions between members this time around. Also, my friend Kidino made a guest appearance :)

Too bad I had to leave early in time for my author’s talk at MPH Mid Valley, but I was really a bit reluctant to go. You see, Internet marketing can get quite boring at times. Same venue at Starbucks Jaya One.

It’s a nice quiet place, although I don’t think it will stay quiet for that much longer.

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As I mentioned in the mastermind session, I’m creating a list of service providers and vendors. If you’re my customer / subscriber, and you offer services related to Internet marketing / website building / e-commerce / digital media, then please do fill up the form.

(Form link is sent via email to members only, please contact us if you did not get it)

Filed Under: Seminars and Events Tagged With: , , , ,
December 26, 2008 By

The Future of Internet Marketing

As Market-Vantage aptly puts

Internet Marketing is the process of using the interactive technologies available via the Internet to further create a dialog with potential customers by connecting with them with good educational content about your company’s products or service offerings.

1 “Change” is the keyword of every practice and Internet Marketing has also evolved over the years. There has been a sudden burst of click only companies and the success shows that there are a lot of revenues that people have generated. The future of online marketing has been a hot debate topic for quite some time now, but nevertheless, it seems bright.

The online marketing business has grown by leaps and bounds and as this digital revolution keeps growing, the motive behind it has not changed one bit from consumer marketing. The motive has and will remain the same i.e. increasing awareness about your product or service, tracking potential customers and creating value for them. But without doubt, the approach has seen a sea change; be it the way we do business, the way we market, service , sell, communicate, distribute, and work.

The future of online marketing may have the following implementations;

  • There will be a transformation from static sites to personalized and dynamic sites which would more effectively enable actual e-commerce. Investment worth millions of dollars in an online business would not raise eye-brows.
  • Search Personalization, SEO, rankings and search results will have specially devised internet marketing strategies which will generate more revenue for both the client and the company. This would obviously mean new advertising methods being implemented for the success of the same. This would further result in diversification of strategies and focus on a combination of strategies and advertising models. The concept of 4C’s of Internet Marketing will actually be implemented.
  • The corporate citizens across the globe will operate in new digital marketplace wherein almost all e-commerce applications such as shopping, paying bills, entertainment, and banking everywhere will be dealt online. The harbingers of some of these applications have already been implemented in some developed continents.
  • The problems of spam, frauds, phishing scams and identity theft concerns will continue, but strict measures will be implemented. This would lead to a reduction in display of banner ads, PPC methods, click frauds etc. Another important concept will be the upsurge in information publishing and copyright of free copyright articles.
  • The achievement of Marketing ROI will become more difficult as there would be a plethora of similar services being offered by many sites. This would further result in increased competition which may go the unethical way at times.

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The future might also have many surprises in store when it comes to internet marketing strategies, promotional activities, functional specifications etc. but one thing is for sure, there seems to be very less saturation in the online marketing sphere in the few decades to come. Making money online would not remain a secret anymore and internet marketing would evolve to be something more than just another business tool. The internet and internet marketing would probably become more than “OUR LIVES”.

Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
March 31, 2008 By

Indonesian Internet Marketers To Dominate The World?

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When I was on holiday in Indonesia, I met a really cool group of Indonesian Internet marketers who showed me a really good time in Jakarta, Bandung and a few other places.

Although Internet marketing in Indonesia is relatively untapped, the Internet marketers I have met are enthusiastic about the huge opportunity. After all, Indonesia has the 4th largest population in the world with cheaper labor costs than most countries and increasing Internet penetration – and these guys have a plan on how to ccapitalize.

From left (excluding me): Cornelius, Semmy Wijayanto, Francis Jimenez (imported from the Philippines) and Dee Ferdinand – a special thanks to all!

Meet these guys at the Bali Rendezvous Internet marketing event in Bali, Indonesia. Very smart guys, and even if they do not end up dominating the world, they will definitely be among the top Indonesian Internet marketers.

Filed Under: Internet Marketing Asia Tagged With: , ,
March 21, 2008 By

10 Silly Mistakes Even Internet Marketing Experts Make

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Some of you may have seen something like the image above if you visited my blog in a few days- my domain got parked by GoDaddy. In fact I managed to renew it just in time before the domain expired and was put under GoDaddy’s expired domains market, which would mean that I will have to pay USD1,000+/- to get it back. Luckily for me, I had to pay only regular domain renewal fees.

In my case it was not a typical rookie mistake. I DID put my domain on auto-renew ever since I bought it but the problem is last month the credit card I’ve been using for over 5 years expired, and I was issued a new card. This meant that any recurring payment using the old card will fail as the new card has a different security number (at the back of the card).

To make things worse, during the renewal date I was in Indonesia for a 5-day holiday and had almost no Internet access. I went online for a couple of minutes but there were so many emails, I must have missed the warning notice from GoDaddy.

All things said, it was still rather silly on my part.

This brings me to an interesting topic – silly things we do as marketers.

Here’s a list of them, tell me if you’ve done any of it before:

  1. iStock_000002680448SmallAnti Domain-Auto-Renewal - As I mentioned in the story above. I’ve lost one or two domains before from this but those domains were not critical to my business. Still, the guy who got it just put up a “domain parking” page with loads of ads and is probably still getting some cash out of it.
  2. Bad English Domains – I’ve done this with 2 domain names. The funny thing just as you hit the “Order” button you suddenly realize the spelling error but it’s just too late and you’re stuck with that domain for a year.
  3. See Only, Don’t Buy – I once spent $230 a day in AdWords and got up the next morning to zero sales. I realized not too log after that the order link was broken – and I felt like a total idiot.
  4. Neighborly Love is Bad - I once wrote the wrong address for my Aweber commissions, resulting in the checks being sent to my neighbor. Luckily for me, he had already move out by then and I retrieved my check from his mail box after checking my Aweber affiliate profile.
  5. Who Moved My Affiliate Checks? – Sometimes people move around. I moved from apartment to house to apartment (5 times) in the past 4 years and I’m pretty sure there were some miniscule affiliate programs I signed up with that finally sent me a check – just to the wrong address!
  6. Wrong Paypal Address – I did this once, send a huge sum of money to the wrong person. The I had to file a dispute and only through the grace of the receiver did I get my money back.
  7. Come See My Download Files – In Cpanel you can choose to disable indexes of your directories. This way when someone types in yoursite.com/images they wont be able to see a listing of all the images. Most importantly, if they type in yoursite.com/download and you have no index page there (htm/html/php) they will be able to steal your products. If you have a WordPress blog, try typing in yourdomain.com/wp-content/plugins and you will see what I mean :)
  8. Premature Ejaculation- I’ve sent out an email for an affiliate product that read “Product X Is Live Now” only to realize that it would a good 12 hours before that happened. In my case you could forgive me because converting between time zones can be confusing.
  9. Backups Are For Wimps - It’s soo easy to delete stuff, and by “stuff” I mean anything from your website files, your e-book source MS Word files, your database (MySQL databases are very easy to delete, just one click) and even your important emails with your login details. Then you realize you didn’t create a backup and you’re screwed. No choice but to spend another 15 days re-writing the same ebook.
  10. [yourname, [fistname], Who’s Name? – How many times have you sent out an autoresponder broadcast email and got the variables wrong? Instead of getting “Hello Gobala” you get “Hello [firstname” – this always happens when: (a) You have more than one autoresponder service and each uses different variables, and you “copy and paste” carelessly (2) you typed in the variables manually, and you made a typo, oops!

Well there you go, 10 silly mistake even Internet marketing veterans make. I made all 10 of them, how many have you got?

Filed Under: Ask Gobala Tagged With: , , , ,
March 18, 2008 By

Majalah IM: Bahasa Melayu Internet Marketing Guide

majalah-im One of the best places to get Internet marketing tips written solely in Bahasa Melayu is at Majalah IM, developed by Kaizen & Adly. The BM market is a huge one, and although we cannot cater to the BM market in Internet Millionaires, these guys seem to be doing a good job at it.

One of the biggest challenges we faced (from experience) is that everything needs to be translated into BM, which is an expensive and difficult task for us to do.

If you only want to learn Internet marketing in Bahasa Melayu, you can always download your free copy of Majalah IM and learn from the experts in BM.

Filed Under: make money online Tagged With: , , ,
February 14, 2008 By

The Importance of a Mastermind Group

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Believe it or not, behind every website there is a human being – someone like you and me!

The faster you get to know these people the better it will be for your Internet business. Watch the video for an explanation on this and why you should consider joining our mastermind sessions.

(PS: Some people say I am so dark, you can only see my teeth in the video. If you’re one of them I think you should buy a better monitor like mine, Samsung LCD flat screen at least)

Filed Under: Podcast & Videos Tagged With: , ,
February 13, 2008 By

Internet Millionaires Mastermind Session 01

One of the best ways to grow your Internet business fast is to meet and learn from other successful business owners. Here’s the only problem: How do you get them all in one place?

I’m glad to announce our first mastermind session happening this weekend, where you can get to meet, network and be friends with some of the top Internet marketers, bloggers, and online business owners in Malaysia.

Learn from the experience of Malaysians like you who have started their own Internet business with very little capital and experience, to where they are now. Discover how you too can work at home with an old PC, and yet make more money than your general manager or boss.

This is a rare opportunity, held every 2 months once. So if you miss this there’s no replay :)

Event Details

  • armada_petaling_jaya-overview1Date: February 16, 2008 (Saturday)
  • Time: 2.00pm – 5.00pm
  • Venue: Nahkoda 3, Level 3, Armada Hotel PJ
  • Food: Light snacks and drinks
  • Attire: Casual

Entrance Fees

  • IMC Silver Members: FREE
  • Normal Members: RM55 / person

I strongly recommend that you join our IMC Silver membership to get access to all our mastermind sessions, interview with Malaysian Internet gurus, and other benefits.

All IMC Silver members also get the recorded audio / video presentations, Powerpoint slides and other materials so even if you cannot attend the event you can still experience it online.

Event Agenda

Please be at the event latest by 2.20pm to register yourself and get your name tags. No registration allowed after 2.30pm when the event has started.

  • 2.00 – 2.20pm: Event registration
  • 2.30 – 3.30pm: Featured Presentation
  • 3.30 – 4.30pm: Snacks and Networking

Please bring along your business cards for networking purposes. Anyone you meet here can become an important business partner in the near future, so don’t waste this opportunity!

Featured Speakers List

Keynote: Gobala Krishnan

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA I’m the keynote speaker for the day, which means I’ll be sharing some tips with you on how to make money online from my own experience, as well as how to grow your business and maximize your IMC Silver membership.

Featured: Steven Wong

steven Topic: “How to Make Money Online Blogging”

Bio: Steven Wong is a full time Internet marketer who focuses on blog marketing. Steven is also a trainer and speaker for his own workshops and seminars where he teaches newbies how to get make money online by blogging.

Featured: Sunny Tan

sunny-tan-small Topic: “Buying and Selling Websites for Profit”

Sunny Tan and me go a long way back, when I met him in 2005. Sunny has been making money online from Google Adsense for a few years now, and currently he makes more than RM5,000 from Google Adsense alone. Sunny has also mastered the art of buying and selling websites and blogs.

In January 2008, Sunny Tan went full-time with his Internet business so it will be exciting to hear how he did it, and how you can follow in his footsteps.

Maps and Pictures

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  • Nearby LRT: Asia Jaya (PUTRA)
  • Nearby Landmarks: Menara Axis, Hilton PJ

THIS EVENT IS OVER

Filed Under: make money online, Seminars & Events Tagged With: ,
January 31, 2008 By

Is Internet Marketing Dying?

Perhaps I got up on the wrong side of bed today, but I kept asking myself a question: “Is Internet marketing dying?”

Of course the possibility of making money online by itself will stay alive forever, but what I mean is selling stuff in the “How to make money online” market.

Some of the issues I’m concerned about:

  1. There are no real new products left to buy, just spin-offs and remakes of the same products we bought 2 years ago
  2. Paypal is still top, Clickbank is still top, Google is still top
  3. Internet marketers are getting more arrogant by the day – now its “You want me to promote your products? Then promote mine first!” attitude.
  4. No one seems to care about putting up good products anymore, all they care about is the system of making money – the OTOs, downsells, upsells.
    • Reminds me of the MLM industry where are the products are usually overpriced crap but the entire selling point is about how much money you can make when your network reaches 10,000 people.
  5. Almost all new social media / social networking seems to target established bloggers, and work the best for them. How about the little guy…

Anyways, just some food for thought. I haven’t been posting here regularly, and I will let you know why in the next post.

Filed Under: General Tagged With:
January 6, 2008 By

Why Most People Don’t Achieve Success in Internet Marketing

Late last month, I quit from the band that I’ve been with for almost 4 years. Music is my passion, and I love playing the electric guitar, yet just when the band was having some level of success I quit. Why?

It’s the same reason why a lot of people quit Internet marketing: lack of passion.

Don’t get me wrong – I DID say that music was my passion, but what TYPE of music? I love playing late 90s rock, blues and a little bit of metal. As long as it’s in that range, I love every minute of playing the guitar. Yesterday I got together with some of my old music buddies and we played just for fun. From the moment I stepped into the studio it was obvious everyone was already having fun, and I felt total freedom to play, experiment and take the lead. I felt alive again, ready to learn new things and play even more. In fact our studio time was over before we even knew it..

In my previous band, there was always the feeling that I had to play music that wasn’t “coming from the heart” – so to speak. My band mates would be telling me “Dude you gotta feel it…” and I’ll be thinking “Feel what?”

There just wasn’t any feeling to the music, which I felt was fake and insincere in the first place. I didn’t have passion for it and it showed, even when I tried to fake the excitement. Spending one hour in the studio was like a long, repetitive nightmare I preferred to avoid.

Other areas of our lives are not much different either. When you do something you don’t believe in 100%, you’re never your best.

In Internet marketing a lot of people hop on the trend bandwagon; they do what’s “hot” at the moment and so the story goes. They keep on hopping from one type of business to the other simply because other people say that’s where the money is. Sure, there’s probably some money there but if you’re not passionate about it, there’s only so far you can go before your lack of passion shows and takes it tool on your performance and achievement.

At the end of the day, even if you’re achieving some level of success, what’s the point if it’s not both mentally and emotionally satisfying?

You want to start a blog but you hate writing. So do a video blog. Do a podcast blog etc; it’s the same thing but the medium of delivery may suit you better. Instead most people continue writing in broken English with half-baked posts that put people to sleep. Then they wonder “Why can’t I get traffic?”

The answer is, your passion isn’t there. And others can see it, feel it, and respond to it.

A lot of Internet marketers would tell you “Screw passion, what’s the point of being passionate but broke?”

I beg to differ. It’s passion for what you do that’s going to keep you in this industry in the long run. Most people quit when success is a mile away, just like I did with my band.

Want to know the reason?

Because they realize after a while that the success they longed for so much means nothing to them, as they were never passionate about it in the first place. I feel happier quitting a band that I wasn’t passionate for, and play the music I loved even if it meant I had to start from scratch all over again..

Passion is a funny thing. You better listen to it because it will never listen to you.

Filed Under: My Journey Tagged With: , ,
November 15, 2007 By

How To Make Unlimited Income From The Internet

I’ve been asked to say a few words at the Webmaster Malaysia gathering this weekend, and Lim CS said he’s preparing a projector for me to present some slides. Wow.

I don’t think I’ve much to share except this one thing. It’s a common mistake a lot of us make in Internet marketing; we don’t turn our skills into a product, and we don’t turn the product into a business. Until we do all the steps right, we cannot expect to make “unlimited income” from the Internet.

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For those of you who can’t make it to the gathering, you can listen to the short audio.

Skills Product Business Asset
Easiest way to make money online. If you have a skill that can be “sold” online, do it. Best way to make more money from your skill. Teach others how to do it, and you have a product. Add more products based on your skills, and you have a business. Add more products based on other people’s skills, and you have a bigger business Hand over your business to others, while maintaining ownership. Remove yourself from your business, and treat it as an asset while building another business.
Do it yourself Teach others to do it, become an expert Hire people better and smarter than you. Outsource everything except marketing & your core skills. Train leaders capable of handling and marketing your business. Pull yourself away and empower others to make decisions. You only decide on the direction and long-term goals.
Income is good, but limited by time Income improves, independent of time Expenses increase, but income increases too if you do it right. Unlimited income and time freedom.

Everyone wants to earn residual income on the Internet. Everyone wants to make money while they sleep, to spend half the year traveling the world and yet continue to make money from their Internet business.

But really, is that possible for YOU?

It depends on which of the 4 stages you currently belong to, and how fast you can move ahead.

Filed Under: Home Business Tagged With: , ,