It seems like there very few really good books that cover online marketing in as comprehensive a fashion as Kathleen Gage’s “Power Up For Profits.” I’ve been following her for years and she always gives high-value content. Her book is no exception.

Although her chapters go through the usual suspects, such as choosing your niche, ideal client, creating products, building a list, etc., Kathleen adds to the mix her vast experience in online and offline marketing, plus many insider tips along the way. You get to see how SHE did it. Plus in her content, she also discusses why you should do this or that. It’s important to know the “why.”

She illustrates her strategies with charts that make it easy-to-understand and see at a glance the entire process. For example, in the chapter on information products, she illustrates her points with a chart on the “Product Life Cycle.” This is a very helpful chart that lays out the process that a product goes through. You can see at a glance where your product is in the cycle and also see what stages you might be leaving out.

Throughout the book Kathleen gives real-life examples from her or her clients’ experiences. These are helpful to illustrate different ways to use the strategies she teaches.

Kathleen shares many strategies in her book, such as market positioning, establishing a social media presence, creative blog marketing, how to incorporate web radio to gain massive visibility, and how to profit from free publicity.

This book is packed with her formulas for all the strategies she has used herself to build a profitable business. For example…

• She has a 9-step process for “Article Development and Distribution Process,” including what needs to be included in a good article so you can position yourself as an expert.
• There’s a whole chapter on how to use blogging in your business with all the tips and techniques for getting the biggest bang for your buck.
• Another section discusses the best procedures for setting up joint venture partnerships.
• And another one gives her ten steps for successful list-building.

She also shares many of her insights on running a profitable business such as…

• Know your market and connect with them not just with tactics, but also on an energetic level.
• If you want to succeed, you need to know who your market is, how to market to them, what the market perception of you and your business is, what market trends impact your business, and how all these components fit together.
• If you don’t identify what makes you unique, your market won’t be able to either.
• Know your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.

In most cases, direct return on investments of time and money is not the best measurement of success for any particular strategy—it’s the amount of interaction you receive.

Some of these strategies, I have heard before, but reading Kathleen’s book, gave me new insights to these and new information I didn’t have. You can always learn something new. I especially appreciated her chapters on affiliate marketing and joint venture partnerships, including techniques for getting interviews with high-profile industry leaders.

Kathleen Gage has built a very successful business and it’s worth your time to read about how she did it and what she recommends and doesn’t recommend. This book is the ultimate textbook on marketing your business in conversational, easy-to-understand language. It should be in your business library.

Creating an online income is the next best thing on the internet today. With the advent of online shopping and the improvement in internet, internet marketing has become the most sought after career for many. Add to it the fact that it gives you a lot of money and freedom of time, it becomes one of the most lucrative career options.

Is it really that easy to make money online in affiliate marketing? Are there are really any Affiliate marketing hidden secrets?

The answer is “Yes” and a “No”. “No” because there is no real secret to it. You will find this information all over on the internet but very few of us really look at it with that sharp a focus.

“Yes” because these really are affiliate marketing hidden secrets.

Let’s look at each of these affiliate marketing insider secrets –

1). Social Media Advertising – How many times have you really looked at an advertising option on Facebook or, MySpace or, for that matter YouTube. None of the online course will mention about these options. But the fact of the matter is that social media advertising in the easiest and most effective form of advertisements. Conversions are high because of the highly targeted advertising mechanism and it is easily accessible to even the newest of internet marketers.

2). CPA Affiliate marketing offers – The real money in affiliate marketing is in CPA offers. Most of the marketing guides or, memberships will mention about CPA offers as a small paragraph in one of the chapters. But the truth is that CPA offers is where the real money is.

3). A layman’s business – Affiliate marketing is a layman’s business. You need not possess an MBA from one of the premier business institutions to start and run a successful online business. All you need to have is the patience to learn some basic things and the willingness to surf the internet. If you can do these two things, it is just a matter of time that you are rolling in your affiliate marketing business.

4). Outsourcing – Internet marketing requires juggling a lot many different balls. There is an insider’s hidden secret to efficiently doing it. It is outsourcing. There might not be too many internet marketing guides that will mention about outsourcing. But Outsourcing can be inexpensive and effective and if you know how to get the most out of it, then there is a lot that you can achieve.

5). List Building – This is an internet marketing hidden secret that is spoken about by any and everyone but discovered by few. The money is in the list. You need to build a quality list from all the traffic that you are getting to your website. A list can be your source to a continuous revenue stream and can be the backbone to your internet marketing business.

All that is required to be successful in internet marketing is a bit of effort and the willingness to learn. If you can be persistent in your efforts, you too can be a success at internet marketing and earn a lot of money online.

Accountants that are using Social Media for business have either recognized and set specific goals that they expect to achieve, or at a minimum have anticipated general benefits that they feel they will realize from using it as a tool in their accounting firm. To find out if your strategy has been successful and is attaining the desired results you must quantify some things over time and measure your Return on Investment (ROI). So we now have to determine, is there an appropriate way of measuring the ROI of Social Media?

Business strategists say that everything that is done for and within the parameters of a business’s activity has to be measurable. Unless social media can be measured, its effectiveness as a business tool remains questionable. The argument for the measurement of everything, including social marketing expenditures, is that it provides a basis and a guide for decision makers whether or not to increase the budgetary requirements in the future. These statistics or measurements are used to calculate a “value” or perceived benefit that is being realized, your Return on Investment (ROI).

Wikipedia defines Return on Investment as: “The ratio of money gained or lost (whether realized or unrealized) on an investment relative to the amount of money invested.” Simply put, the definition of ROI is already in itself — a (1) RETURN on (2) INVESTMENT. But this definition is limiting because it is based purely on the assumption that there is an amount of money invested. Hence, the expected return is also an X amount of money.

In measuring the ROI in Social Media Marketing, assumptions can be easily skewed because there is no “monetary” investment, it is technically free. Does this mean that if there is no money “invested” that there is no tangible return to measure? The answer is no. The investment comes in a different form, your time. We can apply the same principles used to measure financial ROI to calculate the ROI of your non-monetary investments.

The first crucial step that every accounting firm must take is to set clear goals and expectations for their social media strategy. It will be difficult if not impossible to determine if you are making progress if you really have no idea of where you are going, or what you expect to achieve.

Baseline measurements must be obtained before you begin to track and monitor your progress. You must know where your accounting firm stands before you begin. Where are you today? You will be unable to measure your progress if you don’t know where you started.

In Social Media, a lot of your activities are based on human interactions and conversations on your firm’s Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn sites. These types of interactions are not easily measured. In this case your firm will need to rely on a variety of statistical tools to accumulate your “metrics”.

Being Accountants, we love to play with numbers. A quick tip: Metrics alone will not provide you with a clear ROI measurement. You will need to use the metrics to recognize the trends and correlate them to activities within your business. Some examples of trends that Accounting Firm Partners might want to look out for.

Example 1: Your Accounting Firm Partner’s Twitter page’s followers increased 100% from the previous month – did this correlate to an increase in inquiries for your Accounting Firm’s services?

Example 2: Are your fans or friends on your Facebook site proceeding to your Accounting Firm’s corporate website after checking you out on your Social Network? After which, how many new clients did you get?

In closing, remember that measuring the ROI of Social Media is unlike any other typical calculation. You must first begin with clear goals and expectations, and baseline measurements. While “metrics” are required, they are not the sole determination of success. These numbers must be used to determine trends and correlation of these trends to changes in your business. You will then be able to make informed decisions about adjustments to your strategy for the benefit of your accounting firm.