Customer Reviews

Internet Marketing for Less Than $500/Year: How to Attract Customers and Clients Online Without Spending a Fortune

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There's a lot of hype about web marketing and I am constantly warning clients not to believe most of it. Yudkin's information is solid. I would encourage anyone to buy this book before setting up a website. The checklist for a website is worth the price alone. Too many people want bells and whistles that increase download time with no upside reward. And, as we'd expect from a PR pro, the tips on dealing with the press are right on.

Most important, Marcia Yudkin is one of the few e-marketers who recognizes the importance of personalty on a website. Too many self-described gurus advise us to list benefits and create a far-out brand. Yet when you're selling coaching or consulting services, people hire a person, not a series of benefits. I am adding a quote from this book to my new writinglady.com website -- few other marketing gurus realizes how important voice can be to making the sale.

This book has some great ideas for building a customer base from the Internet, but these ideas were quite different from what I was expecting. The $500 in the title is almost entirely derived from web hosting and Internet Service Provider costs.

The book's strategy relies on building your own online community through discussions in USENET newsgroups, email communication, and making your site more interactive with message-board features. This leads to handling customers individually through one-to-one communication. While these ideas can sometimes be effective in generating a few sales, they are very time consuming. I was hoping the book would present tips on a larger scale of deployment, such pay-per-click advertising on other websites. Rather, the strategies in this book would require many hours at the computer talking to online acquaintances.

I recommend this book if you are already an established proprietor and would like to expand your business to the web. In particular, it is geared towards the less tech savvy businessman. However, if you are hoping to find a marketing strategy that does not require many hours at the computer chatting with individual people, this may not be the book for you.

From "Script Magic" author Marisa D'Vari: The first book I read of Yudkin's, Six Steps To Free Publicity, was so upbeat and straight forward in style and had such useful content I became a "Yudkin Junkie" and can't wait to buy each new book as they come out. Yudkin, a savvy marketing guru, shows corporations and small businesses alike how they can tap into the power of the internet for success and profit."

I had been planning to go all-out on the Internet and develop a beachhead before my competition. Then, the Internet bubble spectacularly blew up. I didn't completely lose my faith in the Internet as another way to expand my business, but my faith wavered.

So, I was glad to get this book. $500 seems about right for an Internet marketing investment. I also used Mike levine's Guerilla PR: wired, which also is acutely aware that not everyone's budget resembles Microsoft.

The two of them allowed me to wage an effective, sound Internet marketing campaign for very little investment. Which has always been a key concern of mine, since ROI is very low.

This books is long, and you must read every single line if you want to catch the ideas. The ideas take a long time to perform, so you are better off starting with PPC before trying anything in this book. Personally, I prefer Robin Nobles book on Website traffic.

I bought this book after reading so many positive reviews but I'm very disappointed. I found her approach amateurish and lacking in substance.

She comes across as not really knowing her stuff...like one of those people who laughingly tells you how crap at computers they are. She dedicates the book to Chen, who she quotes as saying to her "What, you want to get on the Internet - you??!". If this applies to you too then maybe this is the book for you cause it's so basic.

Her chapters cover such topics as "The Mysterious Modem", "What is the Internet Anyway?" and even "The Benefits of Going Online". Hello??! Considering the reader is reading her book on internet marketing, I don't think she needs to tell us commensense reasons as to why we should go online. And the rest IS just commensense e.g. how to handle hotheadness??!! (just a guess but possibly good customer service, which of course applies in any business), market your website offline and e-mail etiquette.

I can see where she gets most of her positive reviews though - she says on pg. 65 that when she gets fan-email, she thanks the writers for their comments and then asks them to post their comments on an online bookstore such as Amazon and as she says "almost everyone I made this request of did it". Enough said!

Yudkin's book is by far the best book I've read about low cost effective online marketing. The book does what many others have failed to do -- get you moving into action quickly. Yudkin has been able to capture the important subtilties of the online marketing process. It's not enough to know how to do this stuff, what makes the difference is reaching your potential customers and clients and getting them to respond. "Internet Marketing for Less than $500/Year" really delivers.

Mike Bayer, President - BusinessFor.Com Group

Fantastic Internet marketing resource: If you want to achieve no-cost or low-cost marketing success on the web, get this book. Marcia has put together a thorough resouce that you can begin using by simply reading the book at your computer. Get going today and begin to see others responding to you tomorrow. This stuff works. If it doesn't inspire you to make the #1 web marketing play today - that is growing a newsletter online, you'll find something else to inspire you. Great details, lots of marketing options to choose from.

Marcia's Book - " -- Under $500" is typical of the author. Honest, helpful, and offering informative sources.

Before you read the others, read all of her material. You'll then have the outline and perspective to skim the "others" and pull isolated info to patch into her outline. It won't be long and you'll be on your way to doing what's best for you.
Ed Jones

I found this book to be instrumental in helping me to promote my business in a productive way.