Business Development Advice

StomperNet have sprung a surprise. When I was expecting them to re-open the StomperNet SMARTS program, they’ve decided to open up the entire StomperNet membership site.

This is a rare event.

I believe that it is only the third time that StomperNet have put out a call for membership and the other two times have closed very quickly.

To mark the launch we have another of those terrific videos from Andy Jenkins but this time it’s Going Natural 3 - catch Going Natural 3 video 1 here.

Once again it’s solid content for the Internet marketer and therefore highly recommended for anyone to watch, even if you don’t have the cash available to join the StomperNet program.

You will learn about how to use Google Adwords as Don Thies teaches you the traingulation method.

But don’t leave it there.

Sign up and get your access to the special “extras video”. StomperNet don’t overwork the lists I’m on.

We have now reached the end of the StomperNet SMARTS coaching program about social media marketing.

Boy was this tough.

There is so much to learn and the Webs 2.0 social media is such a fast developing area and there are so many options and opportunities.

Could I cope with all this on my own?

No.

You don’t have time to find, evaluate and find out the best practices (and just as importantly find out what you must not do) so I am really pleased that I made the snap decision to take the StomperNet SMARTS course.

StomperNet SMARTS Review

How was the teaching?

Excellent. You can see how much Don Crowther delights in explaining the social media marketing concepts and the videos were very clear.

Is StomperNet a fair dealing company?

Very much so. I have talked before about how they extended the bonus and the course so that people had the chance to get the most out of the StomperNet SMARTS course.

They were regularly asking for feedback and we had several catch up weeks because it was so hectic.

Was The SMARTS course fairly priced?

Yes. We got a lot for our money.

Was the SMARTS program difficult?

In terms of the volume of work I wanted to do, there is no doubt that it was very demanding. In terms of the intellectual challenge, Don Crowther built up from the basics very nicely. Perhaps a little too slowly for some but this was a very mixed talent group.

At times I thought the course was too slow, for example on Facebook I already had an account created but in other areas I was very grateful for the methodical approach.

Was the coaching group active?

There was a lot to do but the forums were active which is always a good sign of a program which engages the students. People wanted to be involved and I am sure that there would have been much more involvement if there hadn’t been so much to do.

Was the entire SMARTS course relevant?

At this stage no.

Partly this is because of limited time.

Tapping into all the social media marketing channels could keep a small department of people busy so there were some things that I have accepted I am either not going to do (e.g. MySpace where they won’t let me create an account but they are currently very strict on slapping down marketers) or not ready to do yet (e.g. video where I have been slightly overawed by the issues of video creation and production but Jeff Walker’s approach with the Product Launch Formula is certainly changing my views. There is a charm to the home produced, personality based videos that can be extremely effective with the marketing gloss of a big budget video.)

Do I feel more informed about the Social Media Opportunities?

Yes much more informed.

It is one thing to not do something because you don’t know about it and another entirely to say that you have looked at the issues, had both the opportunities and issues explained and then you’ve decided not to go ahead.

One is inaction from ignorance, the other a considered decision based on knowledge.

Now the big three questions

Did the SMARTS course increase my traffic?

This is the only negative.

Although I have been trying to drive traffic to my main business coaching blog, my traffic growth which was rising sharply from September through to January has stalled over the last three months.

Partly this is a time issue. I haven’t spent as much time creating content for my blogs as I would have done if I hadn’t signed up on the StomperNet SMARTS coaching course.

But it is now much more difficult for me to monitor my overall hits because I have content spread over the web and it all helps to grow my “Your Profit Coach” brand.

As Jay Conrad Levinson of Guerrilla Marketing fame is keen to point out, it takes repeated exposures to move many people to action.

I expect traffic to increase from the actions I have taken from the SMARTS course but it may take a few months for everything to knit together.

Has StomperNet SMARTS made me more money than it cost?

Yes.

Thanks to the SMARTS course I was able to promote one launch in particular much more effectively than I would have done through my blogs alone and I did very nicely from that thank you.

The other thing to consider is that I now have the content in place and this should continue to provide income opportunities.

Some of the success stories from other people were amazing but they may be operating in more social media friendly markets. While SMARTS coaching group is full of people who want to grow their business, I know that they have been too busy to look at other opportunities and ideas.

Knowing What I Now Know, Would I Do The StomperNet SMARTS course again?

Yes without a doubt.

It was hard work. It did take more time to go through the training content each week and to then apply that training than I expected.

But I know that the knowledge stands me in good stead, both to grow my own business coaching business through the social media but also to help clients capitalise on opportunities.

Without the SMARTS coaching, I would not have the confidence to advice clients that they should do A but ignore B based on the time issues and likely profit generation. That would have reduced my effectiveness in helping my clients to develop their businesses.

What Comes After SMARTS?

The main StomperNet program has been closed for some time but it is being re-opened for the SMARTS members who are interested in the full StomperNet service. It costs a lot at nearly $800 per month but you get a lot for your money.

I was tempted but I know that it is more suited to people who are full time Internet marketers.

There is also an ongoing SMARTS club which requires a monthly subscription to keep the social media marketing ideas moving forward. This I have joined because I still believe that the Web 2.0 and social media is very much at the beginning.

Individual sites may be flavour of month, shoot up in popularity and then fade but the social interaction is going to continue. It may become more fragmented with teens popularising one area, students another, small businesses another, each hobby may have its own key social media sites. But I believe social media is here to stay.

As I said, I have seen more than enough in the StomperNet SMARTS course to make signing up for the SMARTS club a no-brainer, even though the price is on the high side to what I expected.

I have confidence that StomperNet will over-delivery.

There is no sign that StomperNet will open its main doors again soon but I do expect SMARTS to open up again and maybe a few other specialised services.

I recommend that you sign up and get your name on the StomperNet mailing list. This is a company going places as their faculty is attracting more heavy hitters who recognise how much they gain from association with StomperNet.

In my last update I was concerned just how long the social media marketing strategies and tactics recommended by the StomperNet SMARTS program were taking together with how long it was taking to work through the training materials.

How things change in a few weeks.

Blogging 

First we had the blogging course week and that brought a few very valuable messages home to me.

It is funny how easy it is to be like an ostrich and to effectively have your head in the sand and miss some points that with hindsight are obvious. But they weren’t obvious to me and I was missing some big opportunities to promote my blogs.

I am also starting two new blogs, one to cover business book reviews and the other will pick up more of the Internet Marketing opportunities that are too specialised for many of my readers.

Social Bookmarking

The following week we moved into social bookmarking. I may have seen comments like “please Digg this” or asking for a Stumble. Instead of saving favourite webpages to your own PC, you could save them to one of these social bookmarking sites and you can then gain access where you are or send other people to see your recommendations.

For the blog/website owner, social bookmarking can deliver targeted traffic for people interested in the particular subject. You see, the more people who Stumble an article, the more votes it gets and people like to see the best pages.

Second Week Off

Full marks to StomperNet for taking surveys of members as I wasn’t the only person who was struggling to keep up with the SMARTS program. We had a vote and won an extra week to catch up.

The beauty of this is that it allowed me to put more of these social media marketing strategies into practice.

Bringing It All Together

Week 9 is fantastic as we were shown how all the ideas that have been introduced to us so far all work together, each building on the strengths of what has gone before.

It really does make a lot more sense and I have definitely discovered my enthusiasm for making social media work.

Social Media In The Future

There is little sign of the social media phenomenon slowing down although I have just checked the Alexa traffic and Facebook is opening a gap over MySpace.

Another SMARTS Course?

StomperNet haven’t said that they will open up the SMARTS course again but I think they’d be crazy if they didn’t.

Last week was the StomperNet Conference and some of the stories coming back about social media success are stunning and any program that can generate this kind of result deserves to be repeated.

But with StomperNet you can never be sure. The original StomperNet launch for the web marketing services was a stunning success despite the $800 per month subscription fee but I believe that they only opened it up for a second time for a very brief time. 

But I have just checked out the originally sales letter link and StomperNet do say that they are planning to when the current program is finished so you may want to sign up for receive their next set of StomperNet SMARTS emails.

You can still download Don Crowther’s SMARTS Social Marketing Strategy report.

Perhaps this is mid-course blues but after overloading us with time consuming activities in the early weeks, democratically agreeing to have a one week break (I voted for two weeks), I am not getting all the benefits I had hoped.

The week on video largely passed me buy although I can certainly understand why Traffic Geyser is highly recommended.

I like the idea of video and StomperNet used it to great effect with the SMARTS launch and the Go Natural 2.0 series of videos which should be starting again soon, but I don’t really see it succeeding that well in the business advice market.

Rich Schefren did some pretty neat feeds from the New Beginnings conference which he put on his blog.

Jeff Walker seems to be doing better with the first video for his Product Launch Formula 2.0 but there seems little about business videos which are viral. I guess that they are just not entertaining or original enough.

John Cleese did a great series of training videos with Video Arts which used humour to show management fallibilities in the seventies and eighties. These were excellent although very expensive but we do need to find a way to make these business videos entertaining at a number of different levels.

One problem with the SMARTs course is the old chestnut of having to catering for people at different levels of knowledge so some training has been slow, even for someone as inexperienced in the social media as me. I do accept though that much of the social media success is built on layers so if the foundations are weak, everything you build on top will be weaker than it should be.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some very good sections in the SMARTS course and some of the content of week six had me leaping into action.

I like the way StomperNet seek customer opinion and the program is changing but my feelings are that this is too intensive for the short duration of the course.

At the moment, the benefits are mixed.

Traffic on my main Business Coaching blog has been down in February where I had hoped it would increase. This is partly caused by the time allocation issue as my time has been spent watching the videos and building my Squidoo lens rather than delivering extra content on the blog.

Several of the Squidoo pages are very successful, consistently getting 5 to 15 hits per day and on the Product Launch Formula, my page achieved over 50 hits one day when it was number 1 in Google.

Hopefully my interest in producing videos will increase when I have finished Andy Jenkins (co-founder of StomperNet) bonus guide to producing videos. He has many years of experience in producing videos and the Going Natural 2.0 videos were superb.

You can see for yourself here.

Going Natural 2.0 - Video # 1 - Double Traffic

Week 7 is about blogging so that should be interesting.

Wow the StomperNet SMARTS coaching is the first course that I’ve ever been on when I am seriously behind with my homework even before the course started.

Don Crowther, the Internet marketing guru who is running the course for StomperNet sent out a day by day program of work to do in the ten days from when the program opened to Monday 21st January 2008 when it formally starts.

Some of this work is already in the public arena although the induction/introduction calls aren’t.

If you have missed the videos and other free resources when they were released, here are a few links and my comments:

The StomperBlog - a great way to keep up-to-date with news from StomperNet.

The First SMARTS Sales Letter - it convinced me to sign up along with the free content provided below.

The Second SMARTS Sales Letter - for the relaunch

The Going Natural Video- where this launch started with the Don Crowther video introducing marketing on the social media sites. Very highly recommended as it includes some great tips.

The Don Crowther Follow Up Report - more great tips for using the social media sites for marketing.

How To Double Traffic With Double Listings- great video by Andy Jenkins, co-founder of StomperNet with a very practical tip to get more clicks from Google searches.

Duplicate Content Impact & Resolution - another great video from a self conscious Andy Jenkins

Increase Your Website Conversions - fascinating study of the way people look at websites and how design can hep or hinder you. It also explains why it is better to be ranked number 10 in Google than number 6.

This is high quality content that those nice people at StomperNet are giving away free. Watch the videos and make sure that you take advantage before your competitors do.