I have been marketing online for a few years. I have been reading and studying. I have bought a lot of e-books, software, and various products. Some good, and some really awful. Untill now, I have been involved in drive by shooting.

Don't get me wrong. I'm using it as a metaphor. How I imagine drive by shooting feels like when you're holding the gun.

I have realized that I'm getting older. I'm not using the word old about myself, hopefully I never will. But I'm getting older, and I'm not familiar with all the stuff that I used to know a lot about.

Games.

I used to love playing games. I probably still do, but I hardly ever play.

This is probably why I was really surprised when I read the following post at a discussion forum:

I have something interesting to share with. About a week ago, I tested Yahoo! Answers, and I'm still receiving a few visitors a day from the test. I also tested running a contest, and it worked great at the time of the contest. Now, as I'm writing this, I'm not receiving traffic from the contest, but hopefully some of the visitors are still with me.

Tomorrow, I'll be leaving for Gothenburg and a concert with Depeche Mode. I'm very excited, and because I'm really looking forward to the concert, I've been looking at videos of Depeche Mode on YouTube.

Like this one; Just Can't Get Enough. But before you watch it, be ready to answer this question. Do you see the YouTube marketing trick? (you have to wait 15 seconds in order to see it).

I decided to test Yahoo! Answers two days ago. What happened was an interesting story.

But first. What is Yahoo! Answers?

It's a knowledge-sharing community with more than 90 million members. Anyone can ask questions and answer them on any topic.

With more than 90 million members and a lot more readers, I've been thinking about how much traffic questions and answers could generate.

I have never tried running a contest before, so yesterday's contest was a new experience for me. I didn't do it because I was looking for extra traffic, but that's exactly what happened.

Let me start from the beginning.

Since I switched to Drupal, due to my week of misery, I have been looking for a new design. I had already ordered the design, and it was ready for Wordpress, but I didn't receive the version for Drupal.

The web is immediately international. And it’s on tap 24/7 to hundreds of millions of people, the vast majority of whom would prefer to conduct their web business in their own language. English speakers have a tendency to think everyone speaks English but while many foreigners do, research has shown web users are more than five times more likely to buy from a website with content in their own language. Importantly, three quarters of the Earth’s population speak no English at all.

Legacy is an important part of any marketing strategy. Legacy is anything handed down from the past. The past of a business, a specific company, a product or a person. It could be anything from the past.

The past is important in order to understand the present and the future.

The local bakery

It's been here for more than 76 years. Three months ago they closed their doors. The owner was sick, he couldn't work anymore. I've talked to many of their customers, they were sad. They loved their local bakery.

Everything you do, when it comes to marketing, should start with a sales funnel. What I'm saying is that you should create your sales funnel before you start promoting your product.

The sales funnel is more or less a visualization of the actual sales process.

What is a sales funnel?

The reason it's called a funnel, is that, like any funnel, a lot comes in at the top, and very little comes out at the bottom.

When it comes to sales, we are talking about people/customers.

I have always been fascinated by how Internet marketers promote their products, and how they earn their money. Well, always might not be entirely true. The story I'm about to tell you is about three years old. To me, everything that seems as always is always.

One of the first words or I should probably say concepts in Internet marketing, that I read about, and didn't quite understand, was front end sales and back end sales.