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Review of 'Milk The Web'
Until just recently I
had never heard of Ryan Nguyen. But then one day I read a very
strong endorsement by Henderson of an e-book called "Milk the web" by
Ryan Nguyen. Ryan's book is in many ways
different from many of the other books on Internet marketing. He shows his readers
some tools and resources that aren't usually mentioned in most other books
on Internet marketing.
And instead of just
concentrating on individual techniques, Ryan also wants to show his
readers a complete strategy for running a successful business on the
Internet. This doesn't mean, though, that he hasn't included some valuable
techniques in his book. The emphasis is just on the overall strategies for
marketing on the Internet.
The guiding principle
for Ryan's strategy, can be cooked down to the words: Give
and you will receive.
Don't just try to
sell products, Ryan says. No, you are the product that your customer buys.
So be careful to give your customers the right message. A message that
presents you and what you do in the very best way. And the best way to
sell yourself is to place yourself, as we say, in the shoes of your
customers. Do your utmost to help your customers get what they want, and
they will give you what you want to get.
I totally agree with
Ryan on this point, and he gives a lot of concrete example on how to
actually practice this overall strategy in real life.
Ryan Nguyen adheres
to the idea of giving a lot of free stuff away on your web site in order
to get more visitors and customers. Now, lately some marketers has become
rather critical to the give-away-a-lot-of-free-stuff-strategy. And I agree
that very often this strategy may be too time consuming and ineffective
for many marketers. But I also think that the free-strategy really can be
effective, if used correctly. And that's precisely what Ryan wants to show
you.
I think that Ryan's
book has many helpful and interesting points. He has included a wealth of
information, and he dares to go another road than
most other web marketers.
Especially, I like
his emphasis on really helping your customers, and giving them what they
want, before you receive yourself. I think this is a fundamental, but
often overlooked rule of marketing. All the concrete techniques in Ryan's
book are built upon this overall strategy.
Ryan's book gives you
a fine overview over marketing strategies and techniques built upon that
overall strategy of serving your customer.
He shows how to build
your web site on a budget, how to get your web site hosted for only a few
dollars (yes, even one dollar) a month, the best tools to use, how to get
more visitors to your web site, how to keep your visitors and turn them
into customers, how to survive in a highly competitive market
etc.
Ryan has included
references to a lot of helpful tools and resources for the internet
marketer. And even though I know a lot of resources and tools, I didn't
know several of the tools and resources Ryan mention in his
book.
For instance, Ryan
gives you a wealth of tools and resources that can help you to get more
traffic to your web site. He shows you high traffic web
sites
where you can place a link to your web site, and thus get a share of their
traffic. Some of these web sites are well known. Others are much less
known among many web marketers. But they certainly seem worth
pursuing.
Besides, I like the
section on how to make your product stand out as a really good offer. In
this section Ryan shows you how to convert as many of your visitors into
customers, as possible. Ryan also shows you how to keep your customers
satisfied by treating them really well.
Unfortunately, there
are some grammatical errors in the book. Not a lot. Of course it's the
information itself that's most important, but some of them actually
disturb the understanding of the book. It's annoying, but I won't say that
it's really serious.
It's also annoying
that the URLs in "Milk the web", isn't hyperlinks. Consequently you can't
click on the links. This should definitely have been corrected.
Several times Ryan
doesn't take the time to really explain his strategies and techniques.
This makes the reader sit back somewhat confused and with more questions
than answers.
Finally, I think
"Milk the web" seems somewhat unstructured at places, which sometimes
makes it difficult to find a red thread in the book. Sometimes Ryan seems
to jump from subject to subject without connecting them in any logical
train of thought. But I suppose the reason is that Ryan has so much on his
heart that he wants to tell his readers.
Does these criticisms
disqualify Ryan's book? Not at all! Ryan's book has so much valuable
information, that it more than makes up for the shortcomings I've just
mentioned.
Besides, on the
positive side, Ryan has given me a fantastic service, and he has been very
cooperative. In a time when service is often praised but seldom practised,
such service is invaluable.
SUMMARY
Despite the few
criticisms I've mentioned above, I certainly think that Ryan Nguyen's book
is a valuable addition to my personal library of books on Internet
marketing. Ryan has included a wealth of valuable strategies,
techniques, resources and tools for getting traffic to your web site, and
then turning them into customers.
In short, I have some
criticisms and I don't agree with everything in Ryan's book, but overall I
find "Milk the web" to be a unique and helpful contribution to the many
books on Internet.
Klaus Dahl
Active Direct Marketing Center
http://www.klausdahl.com/Ryan_Nguyen_Milk_the_Web_review.htm
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