MindValley Labs Internet Marketing Blog

At the recent Strategic Profits seminar I attended in Florida I got introduced to Mary Ellen Tribby of EarlyToRise.com.

EarlyToRise is owned by Agora Publishing, which in Tribby's words is an "Idea Company" and they focus on direct marketing.

I was totally blown away when they shared their metrics with me. They have a list of 300,000 people, and they make an average of $40 per person.

Their year-to-year growth is stunning.

Take a peek:

• ‘04 - 3 million
• ‘05 - 5 milliom
• ‘06 - 8 million
• ‘07 - 27 million
• ‘08 - 36 million

Notice the huge spurt from '06 to '07?

After the event I had a chance to talk to Tribby and I asked her to explain the main "mind-shifts" or "strategic shifts" that lead to that stellar growth.

Here was her response:

The Three Things that Causes Dramatic Growth for EarlyToRise.com

These were the three things she said:

#1 You have to embrace offline marketing

Just because you are an online business does not mean that you have to ignore offline marketing. There is absolutely NO reason to eliminate cross channel marketing.

This means physical mailers, demo CDs and more.

Mary Ellen will actually be releasing a book detailing this in October, and I’m looking forward to it.

#2 Test, Test, Test

Tribby is fanatical about testing. Email response rates, site tweaks, promo and offers etc.

She said that every employee had to know how to perform tests.

The most important things in their vocabulary should be:

• Testing
• Anlayzing
• Rolling Out
• USP
• ROI
• Lead Generation
• Response Rate
• Offer
• Acquisition
• Upsell
• Cross-Sell

Metrics are important. Ignore this and you'll never grow as fast. And the 3 most important criteria for these tests should be:

• Immediate
• Specific
• Measurable

3# A Mind-Shift: Every Employee must think of themselves as a marketer first

During Q&A of the seminar, one lady with an internet business asked Mary, “So, my big question for you today is, how do I protect my website from hackers?”. I could tell that every Internet Marketer on the stage, including Mary Ellen rolled their eyes at that question.

Mary replied, “Stop worrying about things like that. The only thing you focus on is marketing. That’s the only thing.”

She went on to add that in her company, every employee is trained to think like a marketer FIRST.

I think this is a very key point. Everybody must think like marketers. Everyone is a marketer first. Whatever else you wanna call yourself comes second. Unless you absorb this philosophy, you are not going to succeed. Marketing is not the only thing, but it is the KEY thing that matters.

Now you can’t ignore that kind of advice, not when it comes from someone that took a company from 8 million to 27 million in one year.

Last 5 posts by

• The Enlightened Entrepreneur Experience: How To Experience The "Turning Point" And Complete Freedom In Your Business - January 25th, 2010
• Tribal Marketing: Surprisingly Ethical Ways to Significantly Reduce Your Unsubscribe Rate And Easily Boost Profits - January 19th, 2010
• Breaking the Silence - August 7th, 2009
• How Relationship Marketing Trumps Traditional Direct Marketing (and Why the Social Media Craze Is Mostly Hype) - March 31st, 2009
• MindValley's Social Media Marketing Unveiled - December 2nd, 2008

About the Author

Vishen is a co-founder of MindValley. Before MindValley, he was an exec in Silicon Valley and New York for several internet and technology firms. He turned bedroom entrepreneur at 27 and by the time he was 31 had founded 6 web businesses and never had to work a conventional job again.

Check out other posts by Vishen Lakhiani

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