In this issue you will:

• Take a quiz to find out if you're a "marketing hero" or a "marketing zero".
• Learn how to put some walk into your marketing talk.

"The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything." - Edward John Phelps

If you can truly understand the above quote, you will be dangerous. By the time you finish this article, you'll know what I mean.

Let's jump right in to the quiz. Select "yes" or "no" for each of the below statements based on whether or not it applies to you:

1. I have never in my life made a marketing mistake. In other words, every piece of marketing I produce is perfect from square one.

"Yes" or "No"?

That's it. The quiz is over. Pretty high tech, huh? Now, please follow these grading instructions.

If you answered "yes", you are either not being honest with yourself or are a super-genius. In either case, I can't help you. Stop reading now!

If you answered "no", guess what? You're a marketing zero! Congratulations. You have just joined an exclusive club which includes me and just about anyone else who has taken a risk or two in the name of marketing. Read on, friend. I like honest folks like you and can offer some help.

Now, you may not get the point of all this yet. Here are two more clues. I will share with you two actual quotes from associates of mine:

"Internet Marketing doesn't work. I know this for a fact because I tried it once and I didn't make any money."
-- Nameless Fool #1

"Radio marketing stinks. I ran an ad on a local station once and had a negative ROI."
-- Nameless Boob #2

Have you figured it out yet? OK, if not, I'll spell it out:

Great marketing isn't a single attempt - it's a process. The two nameless morons above (who are dear friends of mine, by the way) simply gave up after one try. I can't imagine where my business would be today if I had been so easily discouraged.

Let's look at that quote from Edward John Phelps again:

"The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything."

The unwritten prologue to just about every great success story is an epic of failure. The process of failing, refining, and trying again is the magic formula for marketing success.

So, to begin writing your own success story immediately, use the following formula:

1. Every time you begin a new marketing campaign, give it a special name or a code. This will help you keep track of your different campaigns.
   
   
2. Keep a spread sheet of your marketing campaigns and program it to calculate your results. (If you don't want to fuss with programming a spread sheet, get Swiss Army App for Webmasters. The Enterprise version includes a Marketing Campaign Analyzer which will allow you to easily track all of your results as well as a boat load of other immensely useful features.)
   
   
3. When a campaign fails, make small changes to it and try again.
   
   
4. Over time, refine your approach based on your findings from your tests.

Now, it's not quite this simple as you will see when you begin your testing, but this is the basic process. The key is to get started with the testing process.

When you follow this formula faithfully and consistently, I promise you will be successful. If not, write to let me know about your experience (detailing how you followed the above formula for at least 3 months and still failed) and I'll personally take you out to lunch.

I don't expect any takers on that one.

All the best,

Mark Joyner
CEO, Aesop Marketing Corporation

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