travel partner: Internet Marketing Reviews

Overview

Corey Rudl was the founder and introductory owner of the Internet Marketing Center. He started by publishing his own book called Car Secrets Revealed. When a friend suggested he put it up on the Internet, he responded, ?What?s the Internet??

Eventually, through trial and error Rudl built his sales to extraordinary levels, and decisive it was time to commence retail courses based on the proficiencies he had invented over the years. The Internet Marketing Center was born.

By the year 2005 it had grown to over $40 Million/year.

Over the past few years Rudl had taken on a friend as a sidekick, Derek Gehl, who had marketing experience of his own. The two worked side by side.

Then in June 2005, in regards to the same time I was forming this website, a disaster took place when Corey Rudl perished in a car accident. Derek Gehl soon took the helm and over the remainder of the year continued to grow the company to regarding $57 Million.

I?ve been fortunate to have invented a close working kinship with a good deal of of the staff, altho I haven?t corresponded with Derek Gehl himself, and they have been so kind as to grant me to view closely all the productions in order to present my reviews to you.

Positive

According to Alexa, the Internet Marketing Center?s marketingtips.com comes in second only to Ken Evoy?s Sitesell.com amid the big Internet marketing guru?s sites. That?s an amazing feat.

On videos, Derek Gehl surely came off as the less slick speaker than his predecessor Corey Rudl, and was often times interrupted and corrected by Corey Rudl. He never had rather the deliverance Corey had. However, over time Gehl has come into his own as a powerful presenter in his own right.

The IMC?s firmest areas of instructing are

? Email marketing

? Automation of your business

? Aggressive testing

Email syndication is indispensable to Rudl?s methods. By ?email marketing? he isn?t talking regarding spamming, but mainly with regards to building a big email list thru newsletter (ezine) offerings, and permission-based email advertising. However, in his earlier versions of his ?Insider Secrets? course he came under fire for showing readers how to spam. That has since been cleaned up.

Rudl?s special importance and significance on automation is a point well taken. He acknowledges that Internet syndication merely isn?t an area where you may work an hour or two a day and sit on the beach the rest of the time. He knows your time will be at a premium, and he inspires you to automate as a heap of things as possible through autoresponder, automated buying goods carts and automati e-delivery of productions where possible. He provides an onslaught of software for this intention ? which may well be part of the reason for his special and significant stress on automation ? to trade you his software.

Aggressive testing was at the heart of Rudl?s own success, and he makes no bones when it comes to telling you the importance of doing the same. While gorgeous much everyone tells you the importance of testing, Rudl made it the focus of everything. The greatest problem with the way most gurus tell you to test, is that they give hope or courage to you to try one thing (say a headline) for a time, then undertake another, and see if your bottom line changes. But there is an inherent flaw in this method, which Rudl recognized. Suppose amidst week 1 and week 2 a magazine article features my internet site or product (I will have to be so lucky). They are sending pre-filtered traffic to my website, and my conversion rate is likely to be better in week 2. My headline may genuinely be hurting me, not helping, for all I know.

Rudl?s answer to this was to use testing software that concurrently and randomly directs traffic to two dissimilar views of the site, and allows you to compare the conversion rate at the same span of time. That is much more scientific.

Unfortunately, the IMC has no merchandise distinctively committed to instructing testing proficiencies nor any software for the purpose. This is a huge gap in their offerings.

One last very positive note is the newsletter ? exceptionally the earlier ones. Nearly all the instructing the company did was echoed in the newsletter. These days it is more a sales letter than an instruction letter, but the archives are still available on the internetsite and are a good free education.

Negative:

Corey Rudl?s and now Derek Gehl?s back-end tactics have come under a lot of fire. No matter what you buy from him, at rather high prices no less, you?ll speedily learn it isn?t almost enough. If you buy a course, you?ll be told you need various pricey software packages. If you buy software, you?ll need to upgrade to the pro edition. If you think he?s sending you everything you need to recognise in a course, you?ll soon learn you ?need? his course on the super mysteries that he himself uses, which he claims no other vendors will tell you about. Back-ending is a valid methodology, and to be expected, but when you get the sentiment that you were tricked into something you didn?t see coming, you feel duped. That doesn?t mean the merchandise aren?t worthful ? they are. But be prepared.

I strongly dislike trickery, and there are assorted examples of it on his website. For example, when you?re near the order link for a product, you might see an enticing line like ?If and only if you buy by (some date) you?ll also receive (such-and-such)?. Guess what! The date will be today?s date, no matter when you go there. It?s inserted by a script. That, to me is dishonest. It?s merely not true, because if I go there tomorrow, I?ll still get the same offer.

The IMC?s materials are not exceptionally cheap. Of course, neither are the materials of lot?s of other marketers. As I said earlier, I?m not saying they aren?t worth it. If you spend just less than $200 for a huge course, and only use a couple of suggestions from it to garner and extra $2000 in sales, you?ve salaried yourself back 10 times over. And likely it will be many, a great deal of times that again if you use the materials as you should.

There are lot?s of bonus freebies that come with Gehl?s productions ? that?s portion of his typical method, and one he inspires you to emulate. But you quickly get the sentiment that the cited value is WAY over-inflated. It is, of course. The actual value of a product is what you could trade it for, and few if any of the prices he quotes would hold up to asking prices like those. Again, it doesn?t mean his productions are bad. Just the feel of the tactic.

In standard Gehl?s copy feels pushy and in some manner you don?t get the trust element you feel from some. He?s in it for the cash and you unquestionably ?feel? the greed effect. That does hurt his believability a bit. Once again, I?m not saying his productions are worthless.

I?ve been a bit put off by his poor email support. Please see the details of it underneath the Support division below.

The software the IMC sells hard is for the most part formulated by his company. But there are various very good competitory merchandise that work just as well, or better, for less cash and which have better support. I do not commend most the software for the price you pay. One exception I might make is the BeBiz package, which I think has galore value for the beginner.

A recent tactic is that almost each buy is designed to lead you into either an ongoing subscription or to the high-priced consultation packages. This is an unfortunate trend in the IMC?s lineup, in my opinion.

Affiliate Program

Derek Gehl?s commission rates are splendid and there are a heap of who have made a lot of cash on his affiliate program. However, there is some concern over the aggressiveness of the company itself in merchandising merchandise to the affiliate?s clients rather than giving subsequent sales to affiliates. There is no system in place to match returning clients to their former affiliate sellers.

By contrast, for example, Ken Evoy?s affiliate program awards commissions on all futures sales back to the affiliate who sold the initial product ? no matter where they buy them. There is no such scheme with Rudl?s company. However, since the courses are so well valued and IMC?s quality is high, one would be proud to carry his line.

I have tested the affiliate program and found that with regards to one out of each fifty clients I send to his internetsite will buy a product.

Site Popups

There is one consistent pop-up on the company?s site, and that is the newsletter sign-up form. I get a little tired of that thing dropping down in front of me each time I go from page to page.

Free Content

The newsletter is surely the main freebie of value available at marketingtips.com. There is no repository of free ebooks that I?ve been capable to find. However, if you look around the Web you will once in a while run into reprinted articles or other works by Rudl.

He likewise offers a lot of freebies along with purchases, but not by themselves that I?ve found. However ? don?t miss the newsletter archives.

Money-Back Guarantee

All of Rudl?s materials have a money-back guarantee. There is commonly a 30-day time limit, except the Insider Secrets course, which has a 1 year guarantee. I have not yet found a record of a complaint in regards to the hard products. In usual I think the name is worthful sufficient that they would try to protect it by honoring the guarantee.

However, I have heard a few complaints from my readers and from other origins regarding getting refund gratification from the mentoring program. Some who thought it was not the value they expected have found there are disclaimers to what is or isn?t refundable.

I have returned a product that I decisive not to keep and it was promptly refunded. They were exceedingly nice in regards to it and didn?t ask any questions. In fact I found them very pleasant to deal with.

The Better Business Bureau does say that one or more clients stay dissatisfied, even though the company made a reasonable venture to resolve the issue. At least it?s good to recognise they tried.

- ? ? ? ? BBB Quote ? ? ? ? -

?The Bureau has processed client complaints on this company in it is three-year reporting period. Some of the complaints were resolved. However, for other complaint(s), the buyer remains discontented in spite of the company?s reasonable effort to resolve the complaint(s).?

- ? ? ? ? End BBB Quote ? ? ? ? -

Support

In general, I do not have nice things to say in regards to email aid at marketingtips.com. I wrote to them to ask when it comes to some missing newsletter archives.

Six days later I got a response saying ?I?ll look into it and get back to you soon.?

Another 5 days and I wrote back asking, ?what?s the status of this research.?

Another week later and at long last I got a reply saying they weren?t available.

When I joined the affiliate program I didn?t get the initial email. Days later I started to get the follow-up email, but still no selective information on my membership number, links, and such.

I wrote for help.

Granted it was on Saturday. No response. I wrote again on Monday. Tuesday arrives, still no response.

On Tuesday I called them. They asked, ?What?s you?re email address?? I gave the primary four letters of my address and before I got any further, ?Oh, yes. You wrote on Saturday,? She said defensively.

?Yes and likewise Monday!? I replied.

?I?ll get that letter out to you within four hours.?

By the end of the day ? when it comes to 6 hours later I got an email saying ?In order for me to access your account, I will need the email address the account is under. Unless you recognise your affiliate number.?

Sheesh, you knew it when I called you!!!!! But I sent a reply with the email address AND my membership number anyway.

Next day I get another email saying, ?In order for me to delete your account, I will need the email address the account is under. Unless you recognise your affiliate number.?

Delete my account? All I want is my stinkin? introductory email! I sent the email address and account number AGAIN! I ultimately had to call them.

Other times I?ve written with regards to respective productions so I could review them properly. No reply days later.

I?m not alone in this problem. I?ve seen complaints on forums all over the Internet.

Folks ? learn something here!! For such a pundit of automati responders, why doesn?t marketingtips.com use one for email support! Such a major company on Internet selling surely ought to have a response ticketing system. It does not.

Over two years ago I was told there was a ticketing system to be imposed soon. It still doesn?t seem to be in place.

Mr. Gehl ? get on the stick. This is hurting you badly!