Web Marketing Today Turns Three in November

Web Marketing Today, Issue 50, November 1, 1998

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This article contains older information. Go here for newer information on miscellaneous Internet marketing strategies.

Three years ago, on November 3, 1995, the first issue of Web Marketing Today (http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt/) was e-mailed to about 200 contacts, a modest beginning for a newsletter that now reaches more than 50,000 subscribers and is publishing its 50th issue this month, what author Dan Janal termed "perhaps the largest and most popular marketing newsletter on the Web."

This calls for some reflection and thanks to many who have helped us. Our vision has always been to help business people learn how to market their products and services more effectively by means of a website. We see ourselves as providing a source of ongoing support, encouragement, and marketing ideas for Web marketers world wide.

Web Marketing Today has had a special focus on marketing strategies that be accomplished with the limited budgets typical of small to medium-size businesses. While many marketing publications target enterprise-level marketing, Web Marketing Today has remained the champion of the "little guy," who must learn and practice guerrilla marketing tactics in order to survive on the Web.

Over the years, Web Marketing Today and its companion Web Marketing Info Center (http://www.wilsonweb.com/webmarket/) have garnered more than their share of kudos in books and publications (see below). Numerous directories have given it "Editor's Choice" and "Four Star" designations. The most rewarding encouragements, however, come from readers.

Jim Daniels of JDD Publishing wrote, "I've been receiving your ezine since the beginning of 1996, and was probably among your first 500 or so subscribers. Back then I was a 9 to 5 'employee' and today I'm somewhat of an Internet success story. Opportunity, PC Novice, and others have done pieces on me. Your excellent advice through the years has been instrumental in my success."

Here's a particularly gratifying note from Korea. "I'd like to thank you for having me enjoy free Web marketing newsletter service. Actually, if I hadn't found out the service, I would still be doing time-consuming surf to get Web marketing information of value.... I must admit that the newsletter is one of things I waiting for, and one or two accesses to your site every week became kind of habit. Once again thank you and your staff for letting me learn something from your services." -- Kim Woo-kong, Seoul, South Korea

It has been my desire to help make a difference wherever God places me. Web Marketing Today has been a vehicle to do that. But editing the newsletter over the past three years has also been a growing experience. Initially, I was careful not to reveal "trade secrets" for fear of competition to my own business. But gradually I realized that there is so much business out there that you are my colleagues, not really my competitors. So I have become more willing to share with you the hands-on strategies that work in my own business. I also have sensed that many of my readers have included me, somehow, among their own circle of friends, even though most of us have never met, and I count that a great privilege.

I've learned a great deal from my readers, too. They'll share something that is helping their business for me to try, I incorporate it into my own arsenal of marketing tools, and then write about it a few months later. I am particularly in debt to the dozens of writers in the field of marketing that I read each month in order to add helpful new links to the Web Marketing Info Center. I have learned much from you, and you are an indispensable part of my own success.

Thanks to all of you who have become part of the Web Marketing Today family. May God grant me another year to serve you.

-- Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, Editor

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Some Kudos for Web Marketing Today

Tom Vassos of IBM Canada wrote in Strategic Internet Marketing (Que, 1996) "There is so much valuable information in the free newsletter that one might suggest he is giving away too much. Wilson would suggest, however, that he's not. Valuable content establishes his credibility and improves the 'top-of-mind awareness' of Wilson Internet Services in the marketplace."

In his Web Digest for Marketers, Larry Chase says, "Dr. Wilson proffers a seemingly endless amount of relevant and timely information." Canadian Business (August 1997) put Web Marketing Today in their short list of "Web sites invaluable in trying to figure out how we can make money on the Internet."

In CyberTools for Business (Hoovers Business Press, 1997), Wayne Harris gushes, "Whether you're a computer novice or the systems administrator for a corporate intranet, the Web Marketing Info Center is as close as you'll come to Web nirvana." John December writes in World Wide Web Unleashed (Sams Net, 1997 edition), " The signal-to-noise level here is high."

Dr. Wilson has been cited in the Wall Street Journal and Investors Business Daily. The site has also been listed in well known Web research collections, including The Scout Report for Business and Economics and the Argus Clearinghouse.

Web Pages That Suck (Sybex, 1998) authors Vincent Flanders and Michael Willis call the site "one of the best resources on the Internet that deals with marketing. You could and should spend days here. What Dr. Ralph F. Wilson has done is something everyone should be doing -- providing content."

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