In spite of a huge amount of time and effort put in, our first attempts at marketing products were minimally successful. As "newbies" we tried the usual techniques: search engines (all of them with automatic submissions), web rings, banners, links (with sites getting fewer hits than ourselves), free classifieds and a guest book - all with very limited success. (I never did try newsgroups). However, all we got was other "internet pros" trying to sell us something (we still get that many times daily - trash bin). Fortunately, we had no money to spend on promotion, so capital was not wasted. With our "learners plates" on, this was all done on two "freebie sites" (Geocities and Tripod). However, the steep learning curve and persistence gave us a great deal of new knowledge regarding internet marketing.

Things changed drastically once we got our own domain at NZ Enterprise.com (with Webcom), and suddenly all our sites got listed with Yahoo, as well as all the major search engines. Must have been the PERCEPTION that we were "successful" and "bigger" than we were. Image is everything (as in life!). It also helped having quite a unique product in getting a high ranking ("creative writing courses"). Eureka, Hooray! Incidentally, we submitted to Yahoo (Australia and New Zealand); so I suggest you try the regional Yahoo, rather than their main database. We also get quite a few hits from some of the lesser known S/E's (see even I'm learning the internet terminology!), like Looksmart, Snap and Northern Light. ( we also tried Go To http//:www.goto.com, but with limited success). The traffic to our various sites started increasing substantially and sales started materializing. Mostly, our creative writing courses and money management courses, but a few books too.

Incidentally, we do all our marketing on-line; but hope to do some off-line too as more money comes in. We are presently getting 200 hits a day plus, and a few sales most weeks. Whilst sales are still nothing like we would like (and I realize it's much harder to sell products on-line than off-line), we started to make a small profit after 18 months on-line and sales a have increased substantially since then !

As part of our marketing strategy to INCREASE TRAFFIC, I do a lot of submitting articles on self development and writing to e-zines (extracts from my books) and this has been the main focus of our marketing strategy. We've found submitting my various articles (with a resource box at the bottom of each article) to e-zines and publishers who bring publishers and writers together, has made a big difference in getting our sites noticed - in terms of both "hits" and SALES. It's FREE ADVERTISING AT ITS MOST EFFECTIVE.

Living in a small isolated " city" of 30000 people near the bottom of the world with , made us realize the tremendous benefits of distributing useful information around the world at minimal cost via the www. I truly believe e-commerce is the way of the future (especially for geographically isolated, like us). Also I started this one man business with NO capital (just one or two "very clever" friends with technical expertise) in the most economically deprived region of "little old New Zealand". This has now developed to 3 people working (and having heaps of fun) in "Sleepy Hollow", together with an American associate. I believe an idea, a big helping of enthusiasm, together with a great deal of time and effort in implementing it, belief, faith in yourself and persistence (not necessarily in that order) is the key to internet marketing success.

Do the basics, then "hang in there, mate" (as good Kiwis, New Zealanders say) and the results will surely come.