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Interview with Internet
Marketing
Success Story: Corey Rudl
Marty Foley, publisher of ProfitInfo Email
Newsletter, interviews Internet marketing guru Corey Rudl. For many savvy
online entrepreneurs, Corey needs no introduction.
[Marty]: Corey, as one who has been
extremely successful as an online marketer, please tell us how you got
started using the Internet as a marketing tool.
[Corey]: I started marketing online in
the fall of 1994. It was quite a fluke. In my course, I explain that we
published my book, "Car Secrets Revealed", and started selling it offline.
The results were pathetic. We thought we had a winning formula and it was
barely breaking even. I spent about $20,000 offline trying to promote it...
and it flopped.
I took the advice of a friend that was
setting up an automotive site on the net and he helped me get a very simple
web page online. I saw a few sales trickle in and then took more interest in
it, promoting the book online in my spare time.
[Marty]: What are some of the online
ventures you are involved in?
[Corey]: I own four different
businesses that now generate over $5,200,000 in online sales every year. I
have interests in many other online projects, as I have done work for
clients for a portion of the profits I generate. I also have a clientele
base that hires me for online business advice at $640 per hour.
[Marty]: Your book "Car Secrets
Revealed" has done very well for you online. Can you give some details on
it?
[Corey]: Car Secrets Revealed was my
first success on the net. Within 9 months of truly starting to promote it
heavily, it became the #1 best selling car book online (using the unique
promotional techniques I teach). It generated over $140,000 in net profit in
those months. To this day (almost 3 years later), it is still the #1 best
selling car book on the Internet.
The site is at http://www.carsecrets.com/ if
you want to check it out. Everything I put on the page and everything I say
is there for a reason... We have tried many different web page designs and
concepts, and this one works the best (I explain why in my Internet
Marketing course at:
I can't explain it here, as it would fill up
about 20 pages to cover just the details on that topic alone).
[Marty]: You were recently on the
Maury Povich TV show in connection with your businesses. Can you recap for
those of us that missed it?
[Corey]: There is not much to say.
Basically, because of my exposure on the Internet and having the #1 best
selling car book online, they found me through the net and invited me to
appear on the show as their "car expert" to explain a few tips and secrets
to their viewing audience on car buying and the shams and scams with car
repairs. It was a good interview, but what a long flight back... 10 hours on
a plane. Whew!
[Marty]: How long did it take your
first online venture to start making a profit?
[Corey]: The first month the sales
trickled in, so I technically made a profit within 30 days... but nothing to
live off of. Since I was one of the first group of commercial businesses
online... there was a lot of "trying everything", so it took me almost 18
months before I started to see a full-time income. I spent literally 12-14
hours a day, 7 days a week trying different techniques, copy, and ideas
online. Now that I know most every trick and tip there is, I can literally
take almost any business online and make it turn a very healthy profit in a
few months.
As more and more people got online, many of
the standard marketing techniques were getting overused and becoming
ineffective... so I developed "twists" to most of them to ensure they still
made a profit when everyone was using the "regular" approaches to online
marketing. The results: the techniques I use to market online are very
unique.
[Marty]: How did you learn about what
it takes to succeed?
[Corey]: At first a lot of trial and
error. I took a lot of the concepts and ideas I got from the very expensive
seminars I used to attend and material I bought (I was a Jay Abraham, Gary
Halbert and Ted Nicholas fan, and most of their seminars were $7000 and up.)
I took those ideas - and with a little ingenuity and creativity - adapted
them to the net (while in the midst of developing my own winning formulas
for online success). I came up with formulas that work like wildfire online.
[Marty]: I recognize the names of
those other well-known direct marketers that you have learned from. It's
apparent that your formulas work. Which avenues are paying off the best for
you?
[Corey]: I have never had an online
business that *has not* made a very healthy profit. As I mentioned, my four
online businesses combined now generate over $5,200,000 in sales online per
year! And the beauty of it is that I started it myself as a one-man
operation. I now have had to hire five employees to take care of the paper
work and customer service... but have you ever heard of a retail business
that has 5.2 million dollars in sales with only a few employees? No! They
have at least 15-20 employees. That is the beauty of the net: you can
automate everything so your overhead is incredibly low.
[Marty]: What specific types of online
tools are you using successfully?
[Corey]: That is a very difficult
question to answer, because there is no one tool that is responsible for
making me a fortune online.
My techniques show you how to generate
multiple small streams of income, and then automate those streams of income
so you can move to the next. Let me explain...
I would teach you a marketing technique that
will make you $1000 a month in net profit. You then automate that so it
generates that $1000 whether you are there or not. You then move on to the
next marketing technique, and it makes you $1500 a month. And once that is
in place (which takes you about 2-3 weeks), you automated it and move on the
next week, and so on.
The concept here is that you are making small
streams of income from many different directions (all of which are
automated)... but if you add up those streams of income you are looking at
$10,000 to $15,000 a month in net profit, which is over $100,000 a year. The
best part is that if one technique fails because something on the net
changes, you don't have to worry; you still have other streams of income
that are making you money every month.
[Marty]: Do you do all of your
business online, or do your online marketing efforts supplement your
off-line business efforts?
[Corey]: 100% online. I am a
specialist at online sales and marketing. I have become one of the most
respected online marketers on the Internet... and for good reason: I can
prove my successes. If someone asks me to help them with their magazine
advertising, I simply tell them that there are better people than me out
there for offline marketing and they should see them instead. I do what I do
best... and that is online marketing, so I concentrate *all* my efforts on
that!
[Marty]: What mistakes have you made?
[Corey]: There are so many, I would
fill up your entire newsletter listing them. Let me just say that I have
wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars trying techniques that did not work
(but from everyone I learned something very important). But that is the
"price of education" as I say.
[Marty]: What major mistakes do you
see other Internet entrepreneurs make?
[Corey]: There are a lot of them and I
discuss them in great detail in the course, but I will briefly mention a few
here.
- Having an ineffective web site that does
not turn visitors into sales. This is a very tricky thing to do (that most
people do not understand), and I devote a lot of time in my course in how
to make a web site profitable.
- Putting all your eggs in one basket.
Trying one technique and thinking it will make you a fortune. You need to
diversify your marketing efforts into different promotions to see which
ones pull the most net profit, and then concentrate on those.
- Having a poor "sales process" in the
marketing campaign. That is the manner in which you interest the client
into coming to your site, then lead him into a good rapport with yourself,
and then - and only then - asking for the order. Most people break the
link at some point and lose the sale. That is why most sites only see one
sale out of every 200-400 visitors (and some even worse).
[Marty]: Are there any other tips or
suggestions you would like to give others that want to profit from the
Internet?
[Corey]: Research, research,
research.... Read/study everything you can on online marketing and learn
about it before you jump in. For example, I hear stories every day about
people that "heard" bulk emailing was very profitable. They may spend $1000
on the different software, only to find out they were doing it very
ineffectively (for example, indiscriminately spamming, rather than ethically
using bulk opt-in email) and don't make a single cent.
Then there are other stories of online
success with MLM... people spend months using the wrong techniques and end
up not making a penny. The list just goes on and on.
Make sure you understand what you are getting
into with any business online so that your first attempt will be your
success!
[Marty]: I agree, Corey. Too many are
trying to "re-invent the wheel" instead of learning how others before them
have achieved success. I like how Benjamin Franklin put it, when he said:
"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." Thanks for
letting me interview you, Corey.
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