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This newsletter is especially important for Malaysians!
I would like to start out with asking you a few simple questions. How many pages of a book do you read in a day? Do you read at least one newsletter a week? How about magazines? Do you subscribe to a magazine and read it from cover to cover in a month? If it is possible, can you recall the number of books you read in a year?
If the answer to all of the above is either 'none' or 'very few', then you are in trouble.
You might think that reading a lot is the right answer; refrain from smiling cockily at those who have answered in the negative just because you have read 'some' form of magazine, newsletter or book. It all depends on what you read. Why? Well, if the only 10% of the books, magazines and newsletters that you read are related to your work or business, that isn't such great news either.
While I was studying in Northern University Malaysia (Universiti Utara Malaysia), I remember very clearly the number of reading materials that I go through every day, every week and every month. And that would be 3 newspapers every single day, ten magazines and 4 books in a month. And that was a decade ago.
The purpose of that exercise was because of a sage advice someone gave to me. This person told me that if I wanted to survive, I need to 'upgrade' myself every 18 months. But at that point in time, I upgraded my standard every 18 days. The reason for the high standard that I have set for myself is because reading is especially important for an online marketer or for people who wishes to make money online.
The world, the internet changes at such an incredibly rapid speed and with every change, we need to adjust ourselves or we will lose out. Every single change affects our offline and online business...and the fact of the matter is that things change every single day. Google changes. So does Yahoo. And if you read online news regularly, you will see new tools and technology popping up everywhere, every day.
There will be a new marketing strategy being discovered every week, new products penetrating the market on a daily basis and new trends.
I'll give you an example for that. Last year, there was a new breakthrough marketing system introduced for online businesses and it is a coupon system called Groupon.com. Groupon.com was founded by Andrew Mason and launched in 2008. When Groupon.com was introduced, the first market to grab onto it was the city of Chicago which was followed by Boston, NYC and Toronto. At the ripe old age of 2-years-old, the company was valued at USD1.35 billion in April 2010. Of course, with such an amazing opportunity, other larger companies had their eyes on it too; hence, Yahoo leaped ahead and offered Groupon.com a whopping estimate of over USD3 million in acquisition money.
From the rumor mill, it was also reported that in November 30, 2010, Google also jumped onto the band wagon by offering the company to the tune of USD5.3 billion with a USD700 million earn-out to acquire Groupon.com. It was reported that Groupon.com rejected both offers in December 3, 2010.
This is the marketing strategy that has been employed in the online world that has seeped in the service industry and it is the kind of marketing strategy that might be suitable for YOUR business.
The same trend is spotted in the eCommerce industry. In less than 5 years, online marketers know that we should not only study how to operate an online store but also how to delve into Social eCommerce as well. Can you see how the changes keep coming?
Can you believe it that search engine marketing and optimization is no longer THE most important strategy anymore! Everything is social and we have to be in it too if we wish to survive and it is crucial to your survival. If you do not know how to work the online social networking strategy, it is only a matter of time that you find your online business in trouble.
In the same vein, if you're ONLY doing search engine optimization, you'll also be in trouble. Why the negativity?
Let's look at it this way. Traffic to Facebook is higher than traffic to Google. Digest that.
Have you heard of a book by Daniel Goleman entitled Emotional Intelligence? Well, the book was an absolute sensation and an international phenomenon selling well over 5 million copies globally. It changed the way people evaluated and thought about others. And now the author has come up with yet another literal sensation called Social Intelligence. In the new book, Daniel Goleman explores the emerging science we now call social networking that is said to implicate our interpersonal world. This is something that every online marketer needs to understand.
The social world changed our world.
Back to point, there are two very real and big reasons that I continue reading and digesting information.
The first reason is that I have to keep myself up-to-date so that I can provide a better and faster response compared to my competitors. I have to be in on the loop when it comes to new technology, marketing strategy, trend and consumer behavior, new products, markets and knowledge.
The second reason for my incessant search for information is to keep myself motivated. Let's face it....we're all human beings and even I, as energetic and positive as I am, gets tired or feel like I have failed. Most importantly, as a human being, I make mistakes and when I do, I feel discouraged; hence, one of the ways that I cope is to motivate myself with reading other people's success stories or some form of motivational book.
You might find yourself asking, what will happen if you're not a 'reading' kind of person? I'll give you a real situation as an example. One of my customers opened a new beauty center in Mid Valley Shopping Mall. My advice to this friend was to promote his website and perhaps, spend some time and money on online marketing because it is common for people in his industry (at least 60%) are already online and performing online social networking marketing efforts.
My advice was not heeded and he went ahead with printing of 10,000 copies of flyer and distributed them in Mid Valley Shopping Mall.
There is no doubt in my mind that there is an incredible number of people in Mid Valley Mega Mall, in fact, it has to have the highest traffic in Kuala Lumpur but do you want to know what his efforts yielded?
Out of the 10,000 flyers he handed out, he got 5 responses. Now, think about it....5 people out of 10,000 people in Mid Valley Mega Mall? If he were to do as advised, I am pretty sure he would have gotten much more out of his effort.
Therefore, I close this newsletter with a statement that I began with. You need to read. You need to know what is happening around you, why it's happening and how to response to what is happening.
Of course, this is only one simple example that I have shown you about the peril of indifference. Indifference and refusal to read and upgrade yourself may kill you career, job and even your thriving business.
Reading our newsletters is one of the way to improve your knowledge and keep up with current trend. Sign up today.
