Internet marketing is an extremely vast, complex, ever changing subject, and seems like a constant moving target for many businesses and professional marketers trying to succeed online. Smart beginners may ask some form of the question:
"What key skills or strategies make someone successful or effective at online marketing?"
Anyone vaguely familiar with online marketing knows this is a very broad question, and the answer would have to be a general mindset-related coaching response, which would hopefully guide the person asking the question towards establishing the right attitude or approach to such an ocean of opportunity. Sometimes the best way to succeed with a professional career, new marketing medium, or business venture is to reference examples of success. Why?
"Success leaves clues" - Tony Robbins
The practice of using proven examples of success for inspiration and strategy applies to all aspects of business and professional development, especially digital marketing. There are many seasoned digital marketers that you might follow and study for such examples, such as Perry Marshall, Andy Jenkins, Ezra Firestone, Ryan Deiss, and several others with noteworthy accomplishments. These gurus have a wide range of specialization including media buying, physical product commerce, email marketing, funnel systems, and social media marketing, but there is one marketer with such an array of expertise that he is impossible not to mention.
Who is Perry Belcher?
Perry Belcher is an SEO expert, business marketing consultant, investor, importer, copywriter, Internet entrepreneur and Co Owner of Digital Marketer. It's true, a lot of people might have similar labels. However, Perry is the guy who does all that and profits over $1MM from an ebook called "How To Start a Hot Dog Business" and has no problem spending 5x what competitors spend to acquire a customer. Perry specializes in all aspects of online marketing, all platforms available as a medium for creating offers and promotional messaging, and consistently has the most robust customer acquisition and follow up systems around. In fact, most of the other IM gurus use his strategies to enhance their businesses.
Perry has countless examples of successful online businesses, which he casually refers to as his "portfolio companies" - too many to list. A few recently launched virtual businesses worth mentioning are DIYReady.com, SurvivalLife.com, and MakeUpTutorials.com.
Belcher brings decades of startup company and investing experience, and an approach to Internet marketing that the experts can learn from. The following are ten vital factors in Perry Belcher's mega-success with digital marketing.
Market Research
Being first-to-market is one of Belcher's keystone's to success. With disciplined application of known and proprietary research tools, he gathers and compiles information about market growth and trends, and formulates data-driven action plans for entering new markets with offers and products that did not formerly exist. This rapid execution strategy has allowed Perry to accomplish the seemingly impossible in markets where many thought money wasn't available.
Idea Incubation
Before launching any business, product, or website, Perry Belcher refers to his "Brain Trust" which is his staffed team of expert marketers and business developers, which facilities the research and development of possible new ventures. Having such a dedicated set of brilliant minds available for brainstorming and research significantly speeds up the process of conceptualizing, proving, or disproving potential profit opportunities, which allows him to make faster decisions on business plans and investments.
Enterprise Mindset
Perry is one of the most disciplined online marketers when it comes to avoiding "flash in the pan" options for online marketing, and focusses on building real businesses that can either run independently by managing partners or be sold later for millions. Having this mentality encourages better decisions around forming corporations with longevity in mind, and ensures healthier logistics and value-based thinking around growth and planning.
Diversification
Every market has a variety of potential offers and profit opportunities, but rarely does any market fit a one particular product mold. Many digital marketers fail to diversify, not only in market selection, but in offer type strategy. Belcher has mastered the 4 major types of products that can be sold online, information, physical goods, business services, and affiliate offers, which allows him to not only diversify his market selection, but the revenue agendas withing each business he creates.
New Media Platforms
Perry has a twisted passion for tackling every single new marketing medium and digital platform that becomes available. Whether it's Facebook advertising, YouTube, Pinterest, or even environments like Twitter and Reddit that you wouldn't expect to be able to gleam profits from, Belcher quickly adopts it and invariably wrestles it into a systemized, turn-key method for sharing valuable content and reliably generating visibility to his businesses.
Copywriting
Because online marketing is essentially virtual communication, largely in the form of text advertising and various forms of media messaging, Perry's knowledge of buyer psychology and masterful copywriting skills have given him an edge in figuring out how to formulate the right messaging for any given product and market. That coupled with the ability to put it in front of the right people, at the right time, in the right sequence, has made him very successful.
Tracking & Testing
Any good marketer knows that they must track and test the results of every piece of marketing collateral to understand precisely how effective it is, and consistently introduce revised, expanded, more optimized versions of the same or similar messaging to increase conversion. Belcher is one of the most aggressive testers and conversion rate optimizers in the world of digital media, and never settles for mediocrity. According to Perry, no sales page or ad copy is ever complete - there's always something more to test.
Follow Up Funnels
Repeat buyers are Belcher's focus from the start, regardless of the industry or market. The follow up machines, and repeat customer systems Perry puts in place are extremely sophisticated and custom tailored for every offer. In fact, he will often choose to lose money on the acquisition of a new customer with a very small purchase on the front end, simply to "gain the customer" with an unbeatable offer. Once he has them in his funnel, he has a customer for life because there's always an extremely valuable, perpetual offer system in place. But avoid confusion, the follow up systems are typically loaded front to back with tons of value for the customer, so its not just consistently swift persuasion to buy the next thing. Every product is value-based and the result is customers always being overjoyed to invest again.
Community
Building a community of trusting buyers is largely how Perry becomes so profitable in his businesses. Focusing on his concept of "Customer Value Optimization" he is able to consistently deliver value to every member of his buyer communities over time, creating long term relationships with purchase-ready people that can't resist investing in his next product or promotion. It's worth mentioning again that this is only possible when you are delivering real value.
Giving Back
Possibly one of the oldest, but purest, most vetted business building techniques there are - giving back. Perry Belcher is a great example of how the gift of time, knowledge, strategy, and information can benefit you greatly in business. Perry hosts regular mastermind groups, seminars, webinars, and conference sessions where he unleashes everything he knows about a given topic or business opportunity. As a speaker and author, Perry is one of the most giving educators there are in the online marketing category. He doesn't care if the suggestions are out of scope or beyond the topic at hand, and always does a marvelous job sharing more than enough experience and wisdom about business and marketing that may possibly help the listener or attendee. Whether its a spot on a webinar, a seat in a seminar, or a lucky ticket to a coffee date, if Perry is talking the listener is profiting.
In summary, success in digital marketing isn't always about the platform, the offer, the one strategy, or the market. More often than not, a person's success in Internet marketing has everything to do with mindset, resourcefulness, consistency, and a strong sense for innovation and trying new things. The trick is learning from each initiative, carrying forward what worked, and leaving behind what did not.