By Paul Lang, Editor, Sell It!
November 14th, 2001

See Also   The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet   Alternative Payment Solutions   Fraud Prevention Tools   Top Tools to Help You Boost Customer Service   iV-Caller Verification Service   Make Your Price Sell!   FindWhat.com   Make Your Knowledge Sell!   HumanClick   Netship   iFulfill.com   Nexchange   Nothing But 'Net   Netwhistle.com   Bigstep.com   Make Your Site Sell!   AWeber   GoTo.com   Constant Contact   WebAdverts   PersonalStore   SiteInspector   LinkExchange   ClickTrade   Safe   eCHARGE   MilliCent

Product	The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet
Description	Internet marketing course
Version	3.0
Pricing	$197 (+S&H) (or 3 payments of $66)

If there is one thing that there is no shortage of on the Internet then it is self-proclaimed Internet marketing experts selling various courses and ebooks claiming to teach us the secrets of how to sell online. Unfortunately, many of these bring to mind the old adage “those who can, do, those who can't, teach” as they have been produced by people with limited Internet marketing experience and are therefore of little value.

The grand daddy of all Internet marketing courses is Corey Rudl's “The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet” or “Insider Secrets” for short. Unlike many so-called gurus, Corey really is an Internet marketing success story. Corey cut his teeth online selling a book called “Car Secrets Revealed”. He now runs four online businesses that generate over $5 million sales each year. So Corey – at just 30 years old – knows what he is talking about.

“Internet Secrets” has been around for nearly six years now. The third edition has just been published and so I felt it was a good time to give the product a detailed review. In the interests of openness, I think it only fair to point out here that I am a member of Corey's affiliate program. However, I have made every effort to try and keep this review as impartial as possible.

OK, first off what do you get for your money? The course comes in two binders and consists of well over 1000 pages of text together with two CDs containing software, bonus reports and ebooks.

Overall, the text is very well written: it's easy to read, as free of jargon as possible (and where jargon is used it is carefully explained) and is liberally sprinkled with real life examples and Web links. The course is divided in to five main sections and here is a summary of what is covered:

The first section is titled “Getting Started” and contains most of the information a prospective Web merchant needs in order to build a successful e-commerce Web site.

Of course, the first decision that a Web merchant needs to make is what products or services they are going to offer. Corey devotes the first chapter to this topic and includes details of fifteen “hot products” that he recommends for those unsure of where to start. Most of these suggestions are for information-based products, and although Corey briefly discusses other ways of packaging information, the chapter focuses on his own ebook creation software, ebook Pro. A more balanced treatment would have been achieved if he had reviewed – or at the very minimum listed – alternative ebook creation packages.

Having decided what to sell, the next step is to create a Web site on which to sell it. Corey's guidance in this area is excellent and includes great detail on how to choose an ISP to host a site, how to register domain names, and how to design a good Web site. He also writes extensively on how to write “killer” sales copy, a skill often lacking in e-tailers.

The opening section finishes with a look at the various methods of accepting orders and processing payments. Surprisingly, only a few lines are devoted to shopping carts or e-commerce software. This is probably due to the fact that most of Corey's online marketing experience appears to be with Web stores that only sell a single or small number of items where a shopping cart is not really needed.

The coverage of online payment methods is heavily biased towards real-time credit card transactions. Now while I acknowledge that most online purchases are made with a credit card, I still think that some coverage should have been given to alternative payment systems such as electronic checks or PayPal.

The second section looks at three key ways you can grow your sales by introducing up-sell and backend products, effective use of email, and autoresponders.

I was particularly interested to see how the second topic – “Harnessing the Power of Email” was handled in this new edition. For those of you unfamiliar with the history here, after the course was originally published, Corey was accused of promoting the use of spam, a charge that – as far as I am aware – he has always refuted. However, after reading the updated content of this section, I have to say that I am disappointed with it. Don't get me wrong, it's not that Corey encourages spamming – indeed he repeatedly states that spamming is wrong. My problem is with how he has chosen to define spam. Basically, Corey differentiates between spam and bulk email, with bulk email being acceptable and spam not. Corey defines bulk email as sending email to people with whom you have ever had any previous contact, for example people who have in the past sent a request to an autoresponder. I disagree totally with this definition – for me, any bulk commercial message is spam unless the recipient has given specific permission to send them these kind of messages.

The third section gives a detailed explanation of the use of standard online marketing techniques, for example search engine submissions, link generation programs, starting your own newsletter, banner advertising etc. Although most of this material has been covered in just about every Internet marketing publication ever produced, there are two key differences with Corey's material: each marketing technique is explained in enormous detail and includes unique hints and tips based on Corey's extensive real-world experience.

The fourth section is titled “Exploding Your Online Sales and Income” and in it Corey explores four different ways to grow your online business, through joint ventures, affiliate programs, testing surveying and tracking, and competitive intelligence. These very important techniques are usually overlooked by Internet marketing courses and so there inclusion here is welcome and the material should prove useful even to seasoned e-tailers.

The final section explains in great depth (the section contains over 120 pages!) how to build your own affiliate program. Topics covered include how a program should be structured, the selection of tracking software, and how to recruit, educate, motivate and reward your affiliates. In short, this section contains everything you need to know in order to build and run a successful affiliate program.

As well as the printed text, the course also includes two CDS. These contain four ebooks, email extractor software, bonus articles, a FAQ and glossary and Corey's personal resource list. In terms of value, these are a mixed bag: for example the four ebooks contain some useful material while the FAQ and glossary are of little value

Verdict: It is not surprising that “Insider Secrets” has been a best-selling Internet marketing course for nearly six years. It stands out from the pack because of its depth of content and the inclusion of Corey's unique tips based on his extensive online marketing experiences. Even seasoned e-tailers will find much useful material here.

You can find out more at the Insider Secrets Web site.