Interview
with Internet Marketing
Success Story: Corey Rudl
Marty Foley, publisher of ProfitInfo
Email Newsletter, interviews Internet marketing
guru Corey Rudl. For many savvy online entrepreneurs,
Corey needs no introduction.
[Marty]: Corey, as one who has
been extremely successful as an online marketer,
please tell us how you got started using the Internet
as a marketing tool.
[Corey]: I started marketing
online in the fall of 1994. It was quite a fluke.
In my course, I explain that we published my book,
"Car Secrets Revealed", and started
selling it offline. The results were pathetic.
We thought we had a winning formula and it was
barely breaking even. I spent about $20,000 offline
trying to promote it... and it flopped.
I took the advice of a friend that was setting
up an automotive site on the net and he helped
me get a very simple web page online. I saw a
few sales trickle in and then took more interest
in it, promoting the book online in my spare time.
[Marty]: What are some of the
online ventures you are involved in?
[Corey]: I own four different
businesses that now generate over $5,200,000 in
online sales every year. I have interests in many
other online projects, as I have done work for
clients for a portion of the profits I generate.
I also have a clientele base that hires me for
online business advice at $640 per hour.
[Marty]: Your book "Car
Secrets Revealed" has done very well for
you online. Can you give some details on it?
[Corey]: Car Secrets Revealed
was my first success on the net. Within 9 months
of truly starting to promote it heavily, it became
the #1 best selling car book online (using the
unique promotional techniques I teach). It generated
over $140,000 in net profit in those months. To
this day (almost 3 years later), it is still the
#1 best selling car book on the Internet.
The site is at http://www.carsecrets.com/ if
you want to check it out. Everything I put on
the page and everything I say is there for a reason...
We have tried many different web page designs
and concepts, and this one works the best (I explain
why in my Internet Marketing course at: http://www.marketingtips.com.
I can't explain it here, as it would fill up about
20 pages to cover just the details on that topic
alone).
[Marty]: You were recently on
the Maury Povich TV show in connection with your
businesses. Can you recap for those of us that
missed it?
[Corey]: There is not much to
say. Basically, because of my exposure on the
Internet and having the #1 best selling car book
online, they found me through the net and invited
me to appear on the show as their "car expert"
to explain a few tips and secrets to their viewing
audience on car buying and the shams and scams
with car repairs. It was a good interview, but
what a long flight back... 10 hours on a plane.
Whew!
[Marty]: How long did it take
your first online venture to start making a profit?
[Corey]: The first month the
sales trickled in, so I technically made a profit
within 30 days... but nothing to live off of.
Since I was one of the first group of commercial
businesses online... there was a lot of "trying
everything", so it took me almost 18 months
before I started to see a full-time income. I
spent literally 12-14 hours a day, 7 days a week
trying different techniques, copy, and ideas online.
Now that I know most every trick and tip there
is, I can literally take almost any business online
and make it turn a very healthy profit in a few
months.
As more and more people got online, many of the
standard marketing techniques were getting overused
and becoming ineffective... so I developed "twists"
to most of them to ensure they still made a profit
when everyone was using the "regular"
approaches to online marketing. The results: the
techniques I use to market online are very unique.
[Marty]: How did you learn about
what it takes to succeed?
[Corey]: At first a lot of trial
and error. I took a lot of the concepts and ideas
I got from the very expensive seminars I used
to attend and material I bought (I was a Jay Abraham,
Gary Halbert and Ted Nicholas fan, and most of
their seminars were $7000 and up.) I took those
ideas - and with a little ingenuity and creativity
- adapted them to the net (while in the midst
of developing my own winning formulas for online
success). I came up with formulas that work like
wildfire online.
[Marty]: I recognize the names
of those other well-known direct marketers that
you have learned from. It's apparent that your
formulas work. Which avenues are paying off the
best for you?
[Corey]: I have never had an
online business that *has not* made a very healthy
profit. As I mentioned, my four online businesses
combined now generate over $5,200,000 in sales
online per year! And the beauty of it is that
I started it myself as a one-man operation. I
now have had to hire five employees to take care
of the paper work and customer service... but
have you ever heard of a retail business that
has 5.2 million dollars in sales with only a few
employees? No! They have at least 15-20 employees.
That is the beauty of the net: you can automate
everything so your overhead is incredibly low.
[Marty]: What specific types
of online tools are you using successfully?
[Corey]: That is a very difficult
question to answer, because there is no one tool
that is responsible for making me a fortune online.
My techniques show you how to generate multiple
small streams of income, and then automate those
streams of income so you can move to the next.
Let me explain...
I would teach you a marketing technique that
will make you $1000 a month in net profit. You
then automate that so it generates that $1000
whether you are there or not. You then move on
to the next marketing technique, and it makes
you $1500 a month. And once that is in place (which
takes you about 2-3 weeks), you automated it and
move on the next week, and so on.
The concept here is that you are making small
streams of income from many different directions
(all of which are automated)... but if you add
up those streams of income you are looking at
$10,000 to $15,000 a month in net profit, which
is over $100,000 a year. The best part is that
if one technique fails because something on the
net changes, you don't have to worry; you still
have other streams of income that are making you
money every month.
[Marty]: Do you do all of your
business online, or do your online marketing efforts
supplement your off-line business efforts?
[Corey]: 100% online. I am a
specialist at online sales and marketing. I have
become one of the most respected online marketers
on the Internet... and for good reason: I can
prove my successes. If someone asks me to help
them with their magazine advertising, I simply
tell them that there are better people than me
out there for offline marketing and they should
see them instead. I do what I do best... and that
is online marketing, so I concentrate *all* my
efforts on that!
[Marty]: What mistakes have
you made?
[Corey]: There are so many,
I would fill up your entire newsletter listing
them. Let me just say that I have wasted hundreds
of thousands of dollars trying techniques that
did not work (but from everyone I learned something
very important). But that is the "price of
education" as I say.
[Marty]: What major mistakes
do you see other Internet entrepreneurs make?
[Corey]: There are a lot of
them and I discuss them in great detail in the
course, but I will briefly mention a few here.
- Having an ineffective web site that does not
turn visitors into sales. This is a very tricky
thing to do (that most people do not understand),
and I devote a lot of time in my course in how
to make a web site profitable.
- Putting all your eggs in one basket. Trying
one technique and thinking it will make you
a fortune. You need to diversify your marketing
efforts into different promotions to see which
ones pull the most net profit, and then concentrate
on those.
- Having a poor "sales process" in
the marketing campaign. That is the manner in
which you interest the client into coming to
your site, then lead him into a good rapport
with yourself, and then - and only then - asking
for the order. Most people break the link at
some point and lose the sale. That is why most
sites only see one sale out of every 200-400
visitors (and some even worse).
[Marty]: Are there any other
tips or suggestions you would like to give others
that want to profit from the Internet?
[Corey]: Research, research,
research.... Read/study everything you can on
online marketing and learn about it before you
jump in. For example, I hear stories every day
about people that "heard" bulk emailing
was very profitable. They may spend $1000 on the
different software, only to find out they were
doing it very ineffectively (for example, indiscriminately
spamming, rather than ethically using bulk opt-in
email) and don't make a single cent.
Then there are other stories of online success
with MLM... people spend months using the wrong
techniques and end up not making a penny. The
list just goes on and on.
Make sure you understand what you are getting
into with any business online so that your first
attempt will be your success!
[Marty]: I agree, Corey. Too
many are trying to "re-invent the wheel"
instead of learning how others before them have
achieved success. I like how Benjamin Franklin
put it, when he said: "An investment in knowledge
always pays the best interest." Thanks for
letting me interview you, Corey.
Corey Rudl gets over 4 million visitors to
his websites yearly, does 5.2 million dollars
in sales online each year (yes, that is $5,200,000),
and personally makes hundreds of thousands of
dollars from his online businesses... all from
his one small office. So listen to what he has
to say as he knows what he is talking about when
it comes to starting and promoting a business
on the internet. Visit his site at Internet
Marketing Center® where he reveals all his
unconventional tips, tricks and techniques with
examples so you can learn the most efficient and
fastest ways to make money on the internet.
|
600,000
On Autopilot
