Interview
with Internet Marketing
Success Story: Corey Rudl
Marty Foley, publisher of ProfitInfo E-mail 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 $1,280 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, 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 had 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, different
salescopy, and different 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, through 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 $7,000 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
$1,000 a month in net profit. You then automate it so that it generates that $1,000
whether you are there or not. You then move on to the next marketing technique, and it
makes you $1,500 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 in online sales and
marketing. I have become one of the most respected 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* of my efforts on that!
|
| [Marty]: |
What mistakes have you made?
|
| [Corey]: |
There are so many, I would fill up an entire book listing
them. Let me just say that I have wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars trying
techniques that did not work (but from every single one 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 making?
|
| [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 (something that most people do not
understand), and I devote a lot of time in my course to discussing 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. And by this, I mean the manner in which you interest the lient in coming to your
site, then lead them 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 for every 200-400 visitors to their sites (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 e-mailing was very profitable.
They may spend $1,000 on the different software, only to find out they were doing it very
ineffectively (for example, indiscriminately spamming, rather than ethically using opt-in
e-mail) and they don't make a single cent. Then
there are other stories of people spending 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 6 million visitors to his web
sites yearly, does 5.2 million dollars in online sales 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. |
