Retirement Work for Baby Boomers » internet marketing for baby boomers

Baby Boomer Blogging for Internet Marketing

Kellio — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:39:15 +0000

A Must Read for every Aspiring Internet Marketer/Blogger. Rob Benwell’s “Blogging to the Bank” has been the blogging Bible for thousands of IM bloggers and his latest 2010 edition has received countless positive reviews from the world’s most successful and renown Bloggers.

Over the past few weeks since I set out on this venture which is ultimately to learn how to be a baby boomer internet marketer, I’ve come across quite a few unexpected hurdles. When I use the word ‘unexpected’, I do so with tongue in cheek because I knew from the onset that there would be hurdles. However I hadn’t realized that some of these hurdles would take so much time to clear.

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that so many of the free tutorials available on the net through places like U-Tube etc, are often out of date soon after they come online because the software they refer to is being constantly updated.

Such is the case with blogging. I think I also mentioned that in building this blog, I’m using wordpress which is a prime example of software being constantly updated.

As a baby boomer with no experience whatsoever with computers until well into my 50’s, getting my head around even the simplest of concepts was initially (and please excuse the pun), a real headache. I didn’t know for example that when a computer is shut down, it should always be done from the start menu, and not just by pulling the plug or using the on/off switch. It’s the simple things like that which kids have been learning at school for the past 20 years that makes new technology for some baby boomers so difficult to grasp.

The above is a very simple example and I’m sure that all baby boomers who have ever sat in front of a computer are well aware of how to do that one properly, however, I have friends who simply don’t understand much more than how to send an email.

I was talking to a long time friend who I’ve known since we were teenagers the other night on the phone and although we keep in touch on a regular basis through emails and phone calls, I was really surprised to learn that he doesn’t know how to “cut and paste”.

Trying to explain that to him over the phone had him tied in all sorts of knots and he eventually became frustrated and angry with himself and gave up. The next time he tries to do that he well may succeed but it’s more likely that he won’t even try again because he remembers the frustration and anger it caused him last time he tried. Once again a simple example but the same principle applies to more advanced techniques as well!

While getting a haircut yesterday, I was chatting to my hairdresser (another baby boomer) about the internet in general and she was telling me among other things, about the problems she was having with her satellite internet connection.

Now I’m no computer technician but I had experienced similar problems in the past and was able to offer her a couple of suggestions which someone had passed on to me when I was in a similar situation. She called me this morning to tell me that she’s done what I suggested and her connection is now fine and that I’d saved her the hefty bill she would have received had she called a technician out. (I should have asked her for a couple of free haircuts.lol)

The point I’m making is that the information is out there if you happen to be in the right place or if someone points you in the right direction to find that right place.

Such is the case with blogging. I think I also mentioned that in building this blog, I’m using wordpress which is a prime example of software being constantly updated.

The following is a very short list of free tutorial websites I strongly recommend through my own experiences. The reason I’ve kept this list to a minimum is because of a what is called “information overload” which will be the topic of another post. Enjoy!

Affiliate Marketing.

Afflilorama.com ( Free Site.This where I was just less than 1 year ago!

Blogging!

WordPressclassroom.com ( Up to date Free WordPress video tutorials.)

Check out Rob Benwell’s updated and revised edition of Blogging to The Bank here

Netmarkbootcamp.com

FOR BUILDING YOUR LIST

Every successful Internet Marketer will tell you that “The Money is in The list” This Free Ebook will explain exactly why and how to build a list.

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The Myths and The Realities of Aging. Part 1

Kellio — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 02:22:54 +0000

An Introduction

Note: Click here for part 2. Perceptions of the Aged

While it’s a debatable point, many believe that life and therefore aging begins at the moment of conception. What is not debatable however, is that the aging process continues over a lifetime. Each individual experiences the process in different ways depending on variables such as gender, culture, education geographical location environment and of course the culmination of life’s events and circumstances.

Improvements in public health care, living conditions, income, and the control of infectious diseases during the first half of the 20th century were important factors in determining life expectancy, while the second half yielded an increase in health technology leading to the development of antibiotics and wide spread immunization. As a result, people are now more likely to die of diseases associated with living longer such as stroke or heart disease rather than the infectious diseases of childhood.

Here in Australia, the cohort of people born since 1995 may live longer than previous cohorts as they have received the most benefit from lower child mortality rates. Older people will make up a larger proportion of the population and there is little doubt that more people will be seeing a hundred years of life or more by the mid 2050’s.

Because of overseas migration to Australia during the period 1995 to 2015 older people from non-English speaking countries will comprise around 66% of the older population compared with 23% of people born in Australia for that age group.

The future old people in most western societies will be healthier, wealthier and posses a higher education with many funding their own retirement. The huge contribution they are now making to society can no longer be under estimated or under valued. It’s always been a common saying that you are only as old as you feel and many researchers are finding that those aged over 60 are far less accepting as being seen and described as “old” then the preceding generation.

Because an awareness of ageing has been strongly ingrained in our societies, the majority of people are well aware of the kinds of behavior expected at a certain age. But this would not be a problem if these behavioral expectations did not result in the accepted stereotypes relating to older people, which have led to discrimination simply on the basis of age.

Body language, the way we talk, the way we clothe ourselves, even the way we exercise and the recreation and sports we undertake may indicate “age appropriate” behavior. After all we make sense of age through the recognition of significant milestone such as birthdays and anniversaries.

Rather than welcoming the positive changes that have led to an expected longer life span, many in society see the increase in the number of older people as being a concern and a drain on heath services and the economy.

It’s unfortunate that the word “old” is often used as an insult prefaced by the words “silly” or “stupid” and the vocabulary used to describe older generations fails to account for the huge diversity and differences between people. Media portrayals of old age in terms of frailty, senility, poverty, powerlessness and loneliness tend to reinforce the stereotype perceptions. The media is not helping either by sending mixed messages referring to and advertising anti-ageing products with stories and literature which focus on looking younger and being healthier in order to live a longer life.

Some older people do accept and adopt the negative images attributed to them and become subconsciously aware of having to conform to the expectations of certain elements of society and “act their age.” At the other end of the spectrum many older people revel in challenging stereotypes and seeing older age as an opportunity to undertake new ventures and or indeed take on ventures long with held because of social or family pressure brought on by society’s expectations.

Some stereotypes even focus on positive aspects of age such as the kindness and wisdom of older people and these views can be equally unrealistic. Not all old people are wise and kind! Overall, most age stereotypes seem to be negative, and can even be accepted quite inaccurately by some ill-informed health care professionals.

“Negative stereotypes about older adults abound – they are sickly, frail, forgetful, unattractive, dependent, or otherwise incompetent. Such stereo types can lead to ageism or prejudice against elderly people. Most elderly adults have internalized these negative views but believe that they apply to ‘other older adults’ and not to themselves”
Sigelman. CK and EA Rider. Life span Human Development. 5th ed. 2006 Australia: Thomas.

Currently, the myths of ageing are associated with general perceptions about being old such as older people being in poor health, ill or disabled; having a lack of mental sharpness; failed memory; senile; being sad; depressed; lonely; grouchy; sexless; boring; all the same; lacking vitality and vigor and following inevitable decline; being unable to learn or change and being unproductive.

Myths about older people are based on a lack of knowledge about ageing and when they are used in the media or even in professional literature they support negative attitudes which lead to age discrimination.

As the older population grows and the baby boomers begin approaching the traditional retirement age of 65 years, new myths are emerging. In the pages which follow I will attempt to provide, statistical information, research findings together with the opinions of older people themselves (including myself approaching 62 years) in the hope that others will add and comment in order to provide an understanding of how negative perceptions about aging can be challenged.

“The complete life, the complete pattern includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquility of the evening. Old age has its pleasures, which, although different, are not less than the pleasures of youth”

W Somerset. (1874-1965) British novelist and playwright.

NOTE: Click here for Part 2. Perceptions of the Aged.

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A Trek in the Affiliate Marketing Jungle.

Kellio — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:47:35 +0000

Now that I have the previous post off my chest which I really needed to do I’m just going to provide a fairly brief account of what I’ve done so far.

Like many budding internet entrepreneurs, when I first looked into the idea of internet marketing, I fell for yet another ploy which I can’t really condemn as being a scam but the only thing I got from it was the realization that I was wasting my time and money with it.

It was one of those “ready made” web sites you see so often in the search engines and fluttering around social media sites such as twitter etc.

The general idea for most of them is that after paying a membership fee, you are then provided with a custom built website on which you can market any or many of thousands of online products usually involving sites like clickbank, paydotcom, eBay etc, etc, etc.

While I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with selling these products and indeed a lot of people do so very successfully, doing it through a prepaid membership site with a pre-fabricated web site etc, is not something I would recommend to a new starter.

Get My Free List Building Report Here.

More often than not with the majority of these sites, once you’ve paid your money, all the promises about providing ongoing training and support 24/7 dries up within the first couple of days. I tried several of them as a short cut to success with the same result.

So regardless of how good their sales pitch is or how enticing their promises, I’d advise anyone reading this to stay away from them. You’ll lose your money and become discouraged. It happened to me and it will happen to you!

I know this through experience but 99.9% of genuine mentors and marketing tutors will tell you exactly the same thing.

Nope! I found that there are no such short cuts by traveling those roads. What I did find however was that there is just so much free information and tutorials available on the internet for beginners, there is really no need to be spending money on these courses when so many are free.

In saying that I also have to say that there is lots of absolute garbage out there as well. There is so much outdated and ineffective strategies being offered by unscrupulous “gurus” who will offer products to you in exchange for your email address in order to promote more up to date products for which they are paid a commission. 5 years ago you would have been expected to pay as much as $2000 for a course which is now being offered free because the internet is changing so rapidly.

There are just too many out there to even attempt to list but there is one in particular I do recommend and was certainly a great learning platform for me as a rank beginner affiliate marketer a little more than a year ago.

I’m not going to go into any great detail other than to say that New Zealander Mark Ling has an excellent site jammed with great free stuff which you can find by right clicking on the link below and clicking on “open in new tab”.

Afillorama.com

The Old Addage. The Longest Journey Begins….with a Scam??

Kellio — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 02:26:15 +0000

I’m sure that 99% of the folks reading this will be familiar with what should really come next to finish the quote. So without hammering it too much, I thought I’d just give a brief history of how and and where I started to develop an interest in Internet Marketing.

It all started when I fell for a scam.

Being a complete newbie to the internet I answered an add I found in an online version of a English written local newspaper printed in Pattaya Thailand. It was advertising for investors to start an MLM system supposedly to provide a nutritious supplementary food drink to the under nourished and under privileged children of the world, beginning with those in Northern Thailand.

The supplementary drink was that of a well known MLM herb all life product. which is as safe as I think I can come to naming it without having to worry too much about law suits. He simply replaced the labels on the canisters with his own and claimed it as his own product.

He then went to a couple of villages in the hills of Northern Thailand and the Phillipines where he took photos and videos. The whole point of the exercise was to use the photos and videos of the product being given to children for the sake of making the website look genuine. I unwittingly personally attended one of these sessions in Northern Thailand.

At the time I had no idea of what MLM even meant but I saw it as being able to provide to a good cause with a promised return on my investment of $25,000.000

Without going too deeply into the details, the idea sounded great and the founder, an Irish man named Kevin Alexander McKay (Kevin McKay Scammer) seemed like a genuine sort of person when I went to Thailand to meet him.

Well to cut a long story short, he was anything but a nice sort of guy, who ended up recruiting over 15000 people to his list plus their hard earned cash. He then deserted his pregnant Thai wife and took off to Cambodia where he opened a bar/strip joint/house of ill repute with the proceeds. He then took up with one the “ladies” there and as far as I know he’s still there.

The reason I mentioned his name is because I want as many people on the net as possible to know him. His original site was http://www.netmarkaid.com and I heard on the grapevine that he’s going to pull the same scam again…so beware.

Note: If you click on the link above, you will see that the site is under construction. It’s been that way since he took the original site down over 3 years ago.

His bar in Cambodia is called “Secrets” and the website is http://www.secretcambodia.com.

A search on “who is” will reveal that it belongs to www.netmarkaid.com which belongs to Kevin McKay, the guy I mentioned above.

But enough on that. I only mentioned it because I despise scammers and after having lost my investment, I looked around for a way to recover my losses using the medium in which I lost it and to get his name known as a scammer.

Unusual as it may be, that’s how it all started. Hence, my interest in Internet Marketing for Baby Boomers.

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Introduction to Internet Marketing for Baby Boomers.

Kellio — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 02:09:15 +0000

I created this site as an on going journal and personal record of my travels down the highways of the budding baby boomer entrepreneur internet marketer.

Apart from that being one hell of a mouthful, firstly it’s important for me to remember that one of the first things I learned is that although there is much hype about it being easy to break into this field……It’s not.

I’ve read that the cold hard facts are that 90% of people who try to make money through internet marketing….fail.

But, among the other things I’ve learned, is that if you are willing to work hard and adhere to a set plan, there is every possibility that you can make a good living as a baby boomer internet marketer.

I found that the main problem I faced (and I believe is faced by most of us baby boomers), is a lack of education in computer use and indeed the Internet and its burgeoning Internet Marketing industry.

The vast majority of us had no formal internet or computer related education at school or university simply because the technology was so new that those who did have the opportunity to learn were indeed the developers of the same technology.

My Introduction to Internet Marketing for Baby Boomers

I remember when I was about 16 years old, walking down a street in Newcastle NSW where I grew up…. with my older brother and a couple of friends who were also brothers to each other…. when we walked past a building where a couple of attractive young girls were standing out the front handing out promotional brochures on computer education and carrying out a quick question and answer survey.

Now… we being the young virile chaps that we were…. were far more interested in the girls themselves than we were in what they were promoting. Well….three of us were anyway, but Kevin (one of the brothers) probably being the one with the sharpest mind and the eldest of our little group, decided that it would beneficial to us all to go inside at the girls coaxing to sit an aptitude test relating to computer education.

Along with my brother and Gerry (the other friend), I initially scoffed at the idea but went along with it anyway mostly because I’d taken a real shine to one of the girls who kept throwing me sidelong glances and batting long dark eye lashes at me which were partially hiding the biggest and darkest eyes I’d ever seen.

Well, it was one of those old aptitude tests involving moving geometric shapes around and….. if I had 6 oranges and gave 3 to Mary and 2 to Bill who gave 1 of his to Anne who gave it to Mary who gave it back to me, how many would I have left type of thing…… that were very common in that era and which always had me totally bewildered within the few seconds of opening the first page.
Not that I could concentrate much on it anyway while the girl of my dreams was lurking just a few feet away just out side the door, batting those long eyelashes at yet another kid who’d just come out of the bowling alley across the street in Broadmeadow which was a central suburb of the city and a main junction point of the many roads leading out into the other surrounding suburbs.
Anyway, at the end of it all Kevin walked away with a swollen head having done very well in the test, while the other 2 guys produced average results leaving me with a very low score and a broken 16 year old heart…..for at least an hour anyway.

The whole point is that had I taken things a little more seriously at that time, my life could well have taken a far different direction and I wouldn’t have found myself floundering in confusion all these years later in trying to understand computer technology and indeed internet marketing.

However since I didn’t follow that road, I’ve really had to learn the hard way through independent research, trial and error, frustration, computer rage, uncontrollable tantrums, ripping hair out, hours of confusion, sufferance from my family and the list goes on and on. Anyone who has tried to paddle the same boat will be well familiar with those times and emotions.

It’s therefore my intention to deliver to you, the reader as much as I possible can over the next few months or years, everything I’m learning as I continue my journey in as simple a way I can to give you the opportunity to become a successful baby boomer internet marketer as well.

I will provide it to you in this blog by regular posts, giveaways, free training courses, other great blogs I’ve learned from and anything else I consider relevant.

Hopefully it will help my readers avoid the mistakes and pit falls I’m sure I’m going to make and in so doing save you the reader a lot of time and possibly an awful lot of money.

Update 15 January

I just learned that my old pal Kevin Ford (mentioned above), had past away a couple of days ago after a long illness. RIP old mate.