Dale King Interviews Free Publicity Guru and Internet Marketing Expert Joan Stewart

Dale King: Today, I'm interviewing consultant, speaker, world famous free publicity authority and Internet Marketing expert, Joan Stewart. Hello Joan, how are you?

 Joan Stewart: I'm enjoying summer in Wisconsin. It's great to be here.

 Dale King: Joan, tell our readers how you got started marketing
 on the Internet.

Joan Stewart: I left the newspaper business 10 years ago to do consulting, primarily teaching companies in southeastern Wisconsin how to work with the media. I was their behind-the-scenes coach, identifying story ideas about their company, then showing them how to pitch to the media and build strong relationships with reporters.

I got my website a year or two later and started an electronic newsletter called "The Publicity Hound's Tips of the Week," a weekly ezine and using it to sell my info products on how to get publicity.  When people started subscribing and reacting favorably, it dawned on me that my market was no longer just Wisconsin, but the entire world. I started creating products on how to generate your own publicity and do your own public relations, and my business really took off.
 
Dale King: Some Internet marketing experts advise newbies to
 steer clear of Internet marketing, because it's too competitive.

Do you agree with that assessment?

Absolutely not. I was taught by Tom Antion, one of the top Internet marketers who, today, is a multi-millionnaire. He preaches that the narrower you can niche your topic, or the more narrowly niched your market, the quicker you can become successful.

A lot of the people who are failing at Internet marketing are those people who choose very broad topics and try to market to a very broad audience. That's very difficult. It's easier to become a big fish in a small pond, where there isn't a lot of competition, versus a big fish in a big pond, where competitors are tripping over each other.

Dale King: How is Internet marketing different now, as opposed
 to when you first got started online?

 Joan Stewart: Obviously, there's more competition now since more people have discovered how lucrative it can be. But probably the biggest change is that more and more people are buying traffic through pay-per-click ads like Google Adwords. The second biggest change is that blogs have really taken off and have become a powerful way to pull traffic. People who aren't blogging are leaving a lot of money on the table.

 Dale King: How important has goal-setting been to your overall
 success?

Very important. You need to know where you want to go before you start driving the car and setting off on a route.  I usually am working on two or three Internet marketing projects at one time. Any more than that and my efforts become too scattered. 

But my best piece of advice is to never market someone else's products unless you can stand behind them 100 percent. Otherwise, your customers won't trust you. I'm ratcheting up my affiliate program this year because it's easy money. And if I lead my customers to someone's else's quality products, it makes me look good.

Dale King: In your opinion, what technology has changed Internet marketing the most over the last 5 years?

Joan Stewart: Very difficult question. Probably blogs, which have created an entire army of citizen journalists, many of whom are the watchdogs of traditional media. And this is causing nightmares for people in the newspaper, magazine and TV industries.

 Dale King: What new technology do you see changing Internet
 marketing over the next 5 years?

Another difficult question. Probably video, which is already here. People will no longer have to rely on TV for entertainment. We're not too far away from the time when people will be able to download just about any TV programs and watch it on their computer screen. Just look what's happened to the music industry.

 Joan Stewart: Your reply

 Dale King: What  person has influenced you the most in your
 lifetime, and how?

From a business standpoint, Tom Antion. I've been following him for about 8 years and he has never once led me astray. Anybody who is even semi-serious about Interent marketing will start studying under him.

Dale King: If you could give my readers one piece of advice,
what would it be?

 Joan Stewart:  Find a way to capture people's email addresses, then start marketing to them on a regular basis so you can build a strong relationship with them. Earn their  trust by providing high-quality, free information that scratches their itch. Then create products they can buy that go into great depth on how to do whatever it is they need to do. My opt-in list of 18,000+ readers is the engine that drives my entire business. 

But don't stop there. Start blogging. Blogs pull traffic to your website, where you can then capture their email address, with their permisison. Once you capture them, you can start marketing to them, pushing out your message to them. Blogs pull. And you push. The pull-push  formula can be very powerful and profitable.