Tired of Being Confused and Paralyzed by Constant Changes in the Online World?

What if you could get expert and timely answers to your toughest questions about your website, AdWords account, autoresponder strategy, metrics, testing, or general business strategy? And have a community of support and guidance as you navigate the lava flows and quakes of the world of online marketing?

Dear Fellow Business Owner,

Please consider this web page a personal invitation to join the Ring of Fire, risk-free, and find firm footing on the cutting edge of Online Marketing as we approach 2009.

What the heck is the RING OF FIRE, and Why Should I Join?

The Ring of Fire is a huge arc of volcanoes and earthquakes that stretches from New Zealand, up eastern Asia, across Alaska, and down the Pacific Coast of the Americas all the way to the southernmost tip of Chile. If an earthquake shudders or a volcano erupts anywhere in the world, three times out of four it’s in the Ring of Fire.

I’m no geologist, but I understand that these incredibly powerful and potentially destructive events occur because of plate tectonics - shifts in the floating rocks that make up what we think of as the ground. Scientists who study the earth’s crust don’t harbor the illusion that everything is stable and will remain so. They know everything we are and everything we own and everything we care about is precariously situated on a roiling sea of change.

We entrepreneurs live every minute of every day in the Ring of Fire of commerce.

While our friends and neighbors and relatives in corporate or government jobs long for stability, we who live by our wits understand that everything changes all the time. With our ears to the ground, and with high-tech early warning systems, we can survive and even thrive in times of great chaos and upheaval.

I’m not saying I like the speed at which the world is changing. But it’s a fact, and I never was much good at make-believe. So I’ve learned to deal with it, and if you’re reading this, my guess is that you have too. But it sure is exhausting to have to go it alone, ain’t it?

The Ring of Fire Membership

The Ring of Fire is a group for entrepreneurs who want to ride the bleeding edge of Online Marketing. Who don’t want the Next Big Thing to be a lava flow that obliterates their business. Who understand the value of early warning. Who get that the Chinese words for "crisis" and "opportunity" are the same word. Who get that the Yiddish words for "mySQL database" and "dromedary" are completely different - but I digress.

I’ve been at the bleeding edge of a bunch of technologies that have transformed the way people buy and sell on the Web: permission-based followup, Google AdWords, streaming audio and video, live chat. But I’m also the heir to a marketing tradition that has been proven effective for over a century: Direct-Response, Results-Accountable Marketing that pays for itself or goes away. So I don’t chase new technologies for novelty’s sake, and I don’t advise my clients to do so either.

Become a "Ringer" Today

When you join the Ring of Fire, here’s what you get:

Seismographs, where you get the up-to-the-minute scoop on the shifting plates beneath your business. For example:

• Tremors: changes to Google’s AdWords algorithms and programs - what to do to stay at the top of the heap and keep your click prices low
• Tech Talk: reviews of the latest and greatest tools - which are worth the money, which are duplicates and inferior knock-offs, and which will get you booted off AdWords faster than a pocket-protector salesman at a nudist Civil War reenactment (try and get that image out of your head!)
• The Lava Lounge (premium access only): interviews with remarkable people - like Perry Marshall, Rob Goyette, Ann Convery, Ken McCarthy, David Bullock, Dan Hollings, Richard Mouser, Peter Bregman, Danny Warshay, Gayle Carson, Barry Levenson, Sean D’Souza, Michael Katz, and many others - find out the state of the tectonic plates in different areas of online and offline marketing and business strategy from these ear-to-the-ground experts

The Hearth, the state-of-the-art forum and message board where you can connect with me and other "Ringers"

• Smoke Signals - Your questions about marketing and business strategy answered, by me and by fellow "Ringers"
  
• The Forge - where you can submit your website for detailed video critique (and where you can learn from my critiques of other Ringers’ sites)
• Pangaea - where you build connections with other members and form mastermind groups and joint ventures

"RingRing" Teleclasses where we connect live over the phone for 60 minutes once a month

• 20 minutes of teaching
• 40 minutes of discussion and Q&A
• mp3 recordings available in the archives

Free Consulting Call-in Days where you get 10 minutes to pick my brain on your toughest questions about your Online Marketing campaigns: AdWords, landing pages, email followup strategy, ecommerce pages, free reports, product creation, implementation issues, time management, priority and goal setting, you name it.  My consulting rate is currently $750/hour, and I hold these call-in days four times a year, so you can get $500 of free consulting if you take the initiative.

I’m going to bribe the heck out of you to give the Ring of Fire a try: Get all these bonuses just for saying "Maybe":

1. Testimonial Farming: Audio and Instantly downloadable eBook in PDF format ($79 value)

Discover How to Seed, Nurture, and Harvest the Genuine Praise and Delight of Your Customers to Grow Your Business

If You Could Turn Your Best Customers into a 24/7 Sales Force… Convince Your Most Skeptical Prospects Without Bragging… Get Testimonials Without Having to Beg and Plead… Convert Your Service Excellence into the Ultimate Marketing Advantage… Turn Testimonials into Referrals… Would You Want to Find Out How?

In this remarkable (and short) program, you’ll discover:

• How to get extremely busy people to give you great testimonials    
• Phrases that work like a charm to solicit testimonials
• The five "selfish reasons" customers will give you testimonials, and how you can capitalize on them
• How to deal with your corporate customers’ no-testimonial "policies"
• The exact right time to ask for a testimonial
• When you should never ask for a testimonial
• How to turn a so-so testimonial into a great one with your customer’s blessing
• The questions that will draw out powerful testimonials
• The three "magic words" that can add power to almost any testimonial
• How to "upsell" a testimonial to something of ever greater value
• How to use print, telephone, and digital technology to make testimonials your 24/7 sales force

In this cool and no-fluff program, you’ll find out:

• How to write a press release that will be valued by editors and reporters
• How to find the right media contacts
• How to deliver the press release quickly and cheaply
• How to get articles written about your business in the publications your prospects read
• How to create overwhelming credibility for your business (no advertisement can come close!)
• How to use the principles of Direct Marketing within your press release for maximum business results (because publicity without a call to action may stroke your ego, but won’t make you much money)
• How to follow up without being a pest (this will separate you from the sea of PR agencies who annoy and alienate editors with constant "Did you get the press release?" phone calls
• How to become a "trusted resource" to the press (that’s how well-known "experts" stay in front of the media for years)

In this funny and fast-paced interview with Ann Convery, a high performance communications skills coach, you’ll discover:

• How to use "brain twisters" so people beg you to tell them more
• 5 ways to use numbers as you Speak Your Business
• The power of verbs: words that sell you and words that diminish you
• How to follow up without blowing it
• How to reveal without revealing
• How to counter the objection, "We don’t need this"
• The secret of "unhearable words" and how to eliminate "audio wallpaper" from your business communications
• The 10-second mental process to go through before talking to someone who intimidates you

Tired of being confused about the rapid changes in the online world?

Ready to plug into the community with its pulse on the tectonic plates, so you can find out what’s about to happen before it rocks your world?

Ready to give the Ring of Fire a try?

Given the value and timeliness of the information you’ll be spoon-fed every month, I understand if you’re nervous about how much it will cost. That’s a fair concern.

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised - you get access to members-only web content, answers and support at the Hearth, marketing scorches at the Forge, monthly teleclasses, quarterly call-in consulting sessions, all for $49/month. Or consider the premium membership at only $67/month.

As a premium member, you get the following extra bonuses:

1. "Cut to the front of the line" - priority access to the Forge for website critiques (value: you tell me: what is one additional week of an underperforming website costing you?)

2. The "Lava Lounge" Interviews with inspiring business teachers (7 interviews and growing, total value currently $210)

3. An exclusive 100-minute interview with Dan Hollings, creator of the online marketing campaign for "The Secret" ($89 value)

You can become a Charter Member of the Ring of Fire for just $190 for an entire year.

Or consider the Premium Charter Membership for $215 for an entire year.

The Fine Print: The Ring of Fire is completely risk-free. You have 90 days in the Ring of Fire to request a complete and hassle-free refund. No hassle, no mess, no fuss. And keep all the bonuses for your trouble.

You make a lot of tough decisions every day. This isn’t one of them. So to celebrate easy decisions, I’m giving you an arbitrary deadline and a very sweet deal:

Sign up by the date the new US president takes office, January 20, 2009 at 10:04pm EST, and you’ll lock in the Charter Member rates forever.

Click the link below, check out the site, and when you’re ready hit the blue JOIN NOW link at the top right.

Sign up for the Ring of Fire Charter Membership and Lock in the Charter Member Rates

I look forward to greeting you in the Ring of Fire.

Sincerely,

 

Howie Jacobson, PhD
Author, AdWords For Dummies

P.S. You didn’t think I’d forget the PS, did you?