Sunday, February 04, 2007

Navigating The Online Marketing Minefield

Marketing on the Internet has it's obvious advantages: low cost, wide audience, ease of entrance, lots of resources etc, etc... Many times, the results are quite impressive - other days, you just want to crawl in a cave and hide out. Here are just a few highlights from the last 12 months:

* A competing juice company's attorney writes me a nice letter asking me to remove the "Drink Life Drink M navie" from my site - says it infringes on their "Drink Life In" logo. They gave me 5 days to comply.

* An attorney representing a certain Dr. who appeared on the Oprah Show promoting the Acai Berry writes to let me know I must take down any reference to said Dr. regarding his appearance on that show. I can still promote his book "The Perric ne Promise" - just not his appearance.


And there are definitely some positive results:

* I got a call from a producer at Harpo (that's Oprah spelled backwards). He wanted juice samples and some other marketing materials for an upcoming show. I have not been contacted again, but I did get several retail orders from the Chicago area in the days following.

* I've made lots of friends and acquaintances online and have created a second stream of income for the family. I have also increased my CPA's net income as my tax return has become thicker... he also became a Monavie Distributor.

* I have met some of the great leaders in the industry, including Brig Hart and Dallin Larsen at Monavie and Paul Thelan, the Founder and CEO of Big Fish Games. Paul, who has just entered the Network/Affiliate marketing arena, has already made a huge impact. And that's no surprise. In the casual gaming industry, he built Big Fish Games into one of the top 10 gaming sites worldwide - there's no reason to think he wouldn't do the same with the rewards program .

* I got a part-time gig as a guest blogger for Ty Tribble over at his MLM Blog Network. Guest blogging has been a great boost to my efforts. I am surprised that so many of his blogs are without guest bloggers!


So I'm chalking up my losses and labeling them as "experience," and if I make it onto the Oprah Show, you can reference MY appearance on "said show" on your site all you like!

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