April 1, 2024 • 24 mins
Have you ever considered the cosmic dance of a solar eclipse as a masterclass in marketing precision? Join me, Mark Mason, on a journey that connects the celestial mechanics of an eclipse with the meticulous world of product launches. As astronomers chart the stars to witness nature's grand display, we marketers too must craft our strategies with care to captivate our niche audience, ensuring our own moments of triumph in the marketplace. In today's episode, I recount the serene beauty of the eclipse's path of totality in Texas and distill essential marketing insights from this natural marvel, demonstrating the art of anticipation and flawless execution.
But beyond the stars, there's the warmth of human connection—a theme we unravel as we revisit a vibrant meetup for the Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast community. Like the fleeting shadow of an eclipse, we remind ourselves that business challenges are but temporary blips on the radar. I'll share tales of overcoming hurdles with the same resilience and awe that my 70-something-year-old mother displayed during her first enchanting encounter with a solar eclipse. It's a blend of heartfelt experiences and strategic savvy that will leave you both enlightened and inspired. So grab your eclipse glasses and let's explore the universe of marketing together.
Resolutions off the rails? You’re not alone. But there’s still time to turn things around. The ALIGN Productivity Challenge is a proven system to help you achieve your goals in just 90 days—no fluff, no overwhelm. Head to AlignProductivity.com and start your comeback today.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Episode 262.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Late Night Internet Marketing.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
This week on the Late Night Internet Marketing
podcast, we finally publish along overdue episode about the
solar eclipse that just happenedhere in Texas.
Actually, it happened a monthago and I'm finally getting the
episode out now.
But there are some marketinglessons, believe it or not, that
we can learn from the totaleclipse of the sun.
(00:31):
All this and more on the LateNight Internet Marketing Podcast
.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
The Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast.
My friend, yes, you can do itright when it's late at night.
At the end of the day, yourdreams burn in your sights.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Keep it up and you will find that you're building
your business one night at atime and now broadcasting late
at night from a little studio inthe big state of Texas, your
host, mark Mason.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Hey, hey, hey, how is everyone doing?
I am your host, mark Mason, andtoday we're going to talk a
little bit about the totaleclipse of the sun that happened
here in Dallas, texas.
Actually, it happened all overthe United States, but the total
eclipse only happened in anarrow band up through from
(01:53):
Mexico up into the Northeast.
They call this the path oftotality, and if you count all
the people in Mexico, all theway up through the United States
and into Canada, all the peoplethat are in the path of
totality, it was about 31million people that got to see
(02:14):
this thing.
Now, I had never before seen atotal eclipse.
I've seen lots of partialeclipses, lots of partial
eclipses, and as an engineer bytraining, I know a lot about
astronomy and other things thatare related to science, because
science is my jam when I'm notdoing marketing.
But I was surprised to learnthat a lot of people don't
(02:39):
really know what a solar eclipseis, and so, to put it simply, a
solar eclipse is a situationwhere the moon gets exactly
between you and the sun andcasts a shadow on you, either
partially or totally, as in thiscase.
And it's a lot more complicatedand interesting than that,
(03:02):
because the orbits areelliptical and things are tilted
and if you're an astronomer, Ithink it's super interesting.
If you're not an astronomer,that's just a shadow that the
moon is casting on the Earth andit is a remarkable thing and it
made me wonder as this thingwas happening was happening.
(03:28):
It's easy for me to say thatthat's what is going on, because
I have the benefit of Galileoand Copernicus and NASA and JPL
and all this amazing sciencethat's happened in the last 500
years, but 500 or 600 or athousand years ago, when
eclipses came, it must have beenreally freaky, because we as a
species, when we don'tunderstand something, we try to
(03:49):
explain it just the best that wecan.
Most of the time we make stuffup like Greek gods and stuff to
explain things, and so you know,I can imagine it was really
weird.
But I thought, since I you know,I wanted an excuse to talk
about the eclipse.
It was really awesome.
(04:09):
We're going to get into that alittle bit.
I thought my excuse would bethere's some marketing lessons
buried into the eclipse that wecan pull out, and it made me
laugh because that's totally anexcuse and I'm sure you get that
.
But there are some marketingthings that we can talk about in
terms of the eclipse that arekind of interesting.
And I think the first thing thatwe can talk about in terms of
(04:34):
the eclipse is I noticed thatfor months and months ahead of
time, we had discussions abouthow to prepare for the eclipse,
had discussions about how toprepare for the eclipse, what
the eclipse was going to looklike, what equipment you needed
all of the exact moving partsthat needed to happen in order
(04:54):
for you, the viewer, tosuccessfully watch the eclipse
and have the best experience.
And what it reminded me of froma marketing standpoint is a
product launch.
When you go to launch a productand you've got this situation
where you need to create theproduct, plan it out and create
(05:15):
it and, even before that, do themarket research, and then you
need to prepare landing pagesand lead magnets and a traffic
strategy branding pages and leadmagnets and a traffic strategy.
You need to usually buy ads andcreate email sequences and
figure out a way to get theproduct in front of your
audience.
If you're using a productlaunch formula approach, you've
got timed releases of contentthat you're worried about and
(05:39):
you're doing all thispreparation so that on a day or
over the course of several daysor a couple of weeks you can
launch your product.
That's exactly like gettingprepared for the solar eclipse,
and the better that you prepare,the more enjoyable your four
and a half minutes of totaleclipse are going to be.
(05:59):
That's what we enjoyed.
Actually, I'm a little bit offthe center line here in Dallas,
so we had a couple of minutes oftotal eclipse and we had no
stress.
It was easy peasy, we had fun.
We sat out by the pool andwatch the eclipse.
It was totally memorable.
We had planned and got mymother up to Dallas in time so
that she could watch it with us.
(06:20):
I had actually secured specialanzi certified glass that we
could look through.
That's used by welders, so thatwe wouldn't have to rely on the
less expensive solar glasseswhich we we also used.
We considered doing photography, but decided not to do that.
You guys know my wife is aphotographer, but we did a lot
(06:43):
of planning and had a totallyenjoyable time.
I think likewise, if you puteffort into your marketing
launches like that and do atremendous amount of planning
around your launch, you canthoroughly enjoy that launch
process and do it without theneed of having a lot of stress.
(07:04):
The second thing that theeclipse made me think of, which
I thought was really interesting, is this was really a niche
market inside the United States.
A band going all the way acrossthe north to the south were the
people that were impacted bythis, and if you were selling
(07:27):
Eclipse glasses, that's whereyour niche market was.
Now, of course, the partialeclipse was available elsewhere
in the United States.
That's kind of normal, but thenumber of people that I know
that were outside watching theeclipse in the Dallas area, for
example, was approximately 100%.
That's a niche market andthat's very analogous to what
(07:51):
goes on in marketing.
You know, there's this sayingthat we've always talked about
the riches are in the niches,which is unfortunate.
That riches doesn't rhyme withniches, but you get the idea.
The riches are in the nichesand that's where people who need
to solve a particular problemthat you can communicate with
(08:12):
directly.
Those people are the ones thatneed your product and you need
to find those people and in thecase of this eclipse, those
people were actually in thisband where totality was
happening.
That's where all the action was, all the excitement and, sure,
(08:36):
there were sales outside of theniche.
There were people in Nevadathat were buying glasses to
watch the partial eclipse.
But the majority of the salesand the highest market
penetration for sales of thesesolar eclipse glasses were
definitely in this niche oftotal eclipse, this path of
totality.
That happened across the UnitedStates, and we know this
because we know where that pathis and we get ready to do this
(08:58):
from a marketing standpoint bydoing marketing research,
identifying our niche andfocusing down on it.
We want to be selling tospecifically someone, not to
everyone.
We want to delight a particularcustomer and, yeah, we will
also make sales to othercustomers.
That's inevitable and great andwe can have approaches for that
(09:23):
.
But if we're not selling tosomebody, we're effectively
selling to nobody.
So, niches niches are reallyimportant.
Okay, the other thing that Ithink is really telling is that,
in general, if you're workingin a niche, some kind of
marketing niche whether it's theactual online business niche,
(09:44):
like I'm in, or you're in golf,or you're doing whatever you're
doing, whatever expertise thatyou're using to help people
solve a problem, whether you'rehelping people with their blood
pressure or diabetes, or you'rehelping people with their
finances whatever niche you'rein woodworking, whatever it is
(10:05):
those people need tools and,just like everyone that was
involved with the solar eclipseabsolutely needed eclipse
glasses.
People in your niche.
They need tools.
You need to figure out whattools that your people need and
(10:25):
help them decide which toolsthey need to buy.
So if you've got a brand aroundbaseball commentary, so let's
say that you've got a brandaround analyzing what's going on
in major league baseball.
The people in your niche thatare looking to you for
commentary on baseball.
(10:46):
They also need tools of variouskinds.
They need merch for your brandand merch for MLB, and there's
probably a lot of baseballplayers in your niche and maybe
you niche down and your contentis directly targeted at people
who play baseball, who also areinterested in watching
professional baseball.
However you're doing it, thereare people that need merchandise
(11:08):
.
You need to help them.
Help people understand what itis that they need, discover
things that maybe they weren'teven aware of, new tools and new
products and new opportunitiesfor them to up their game,
whatever it is that they'redoing and help them sort through
all that stuff and decide whatthe right product for them is
(11:30):
and establish affiliate orinfluencer relationships with
those brands.
Just like the people in theeclipse needed glasses, your
people need tools and I'll tellyou what the niche inside the
niche on this eclipse thing wasthe photographers.
So I happened to go down to myfavorite photography place here
(11:53):
in Dallas competitive camerashout out to those guys they are
absolutely amazing.
Ask for Eugene at competitivecamera and tell him that Mark
sent you.
That dude is amazing.
And he was covered up,literally covered up.
I went in the store and theywere covered up with people
buying special solar filters andother photography equipment so
(12:18):
that they could photograph theeclipse.
Because those people interestedin that eclipse they needed
special tools.
And you can bet that if you area photography influencer or you
had a photography blog or youwere creating photography
content on YouTube during thistime, you were taking advantage
(12:40):
of that event and you wereselling merchandise or
influencing people to buyparticular products.
You know, the final thing thatI'll leave you with from the
eclipse that I thought wasinteresting was that you needed
to be careful and you had totake a lot of safety measures
(13:01):
from the eclipse and from amarketing standpoint, we need to
do absolutely the same thingPeople who were watching the
eclipse.
They needed to have properlycertified safety glasses.
They need to make sure theydidn't forget and they weren't
careless and didn't accidentallylook around the glasses or
forget to put the glasses on andlook up at the sun, and so
(13:23):
forth.
Marketers, we need to be morecareful about security measures
like two-factor authentication,easy-to-guess passwords, locking
down our email, making sure wehave a way to recover accounts
if they're compromised, and soforth.
We need to be very carefulabout that because most of us
online entrepreneurs our entirebusiness and if you're doing
(13:46):
this to support your family,your entire livelihood, is an
electronic situation online thatyou need to protect and you
need to be taking measures to dothat.
You need to be implementingtwo-factor, you need to be
staying up to date with securitypatches on your computer and
all these things.
We don't really talk about themso much, but more and more I
hear stories of even people thatI know, love and respect that
(14:11):
have account compromises happento them even when they're
careful.
So it's doubly important foryou to keep things locked down
and, just like you're makingsure that you have ANSI
certified solar eclipse viewingglasses, you need to make sure
that you're using two-factorauthentication and great
passwords on all of youraccounts.
(14:34):
The final thing I'll leave youwith this sense of community
that you saw with the solareclipse, like on my block, we
actually had a block party andthat was a great thing.
I wasn't able to attend becauseI was busy doing my own thing,
but that was a cool deal andpeople from my neighborhood got
together and they watched thesolar eclipse together, building
(14:54):
a sense of community.
You should be doing that withyour brand.
My favorite story around thiswas one time many years ago, I
reached out to listeners of thelate night internet marketing
podcast and invited them to joinme for a beer at a local pub.
Now, at that time, I was asmall podcast but I had
(15:15):
listeners in the Dallas area,which is kind of remarkable
because this podcast is listenedto in over a hundred countries.
Listeners are spread out allover the world.
I don't know where you areright now, but chances are
you're not in Dallas, but therewere a handful of people, which
was super cool.
I invited them to a pub.
I bought appetizers, theybought their own alcohol and we
(15:38):
sat around a table and there wasmore than a dozen people there
just talking about their onlinebusinesses.
This was way back in, probablyin 2010 or 2011,.
Around that time frame, thesekind of meetups and things can
be really cool, and I think youmight be surprised, if you offer
those kind of things to yourcommunity, how they'll be
(15:59):
interested in taking advantageof that, maybe even in some
cases driving relatively longdistances to come make a
connection.
People crave this sort ofcommunity, and you can't quite
get all the way there.
Online, online community isgreat, but you can't get all the
way there, and so if you dothings in the real world IRL as
(16:23):
the gamers say then thatprovides a significant value to
your community, no matter whatniche you're in.
That's something that I thinkcould be considered, and you can
do that in a way that is notjust for hanging out, but you
can offer value.
You can do an AMA session thatway.
I think.
Ask Me Anything.
Sessions are really cool, andin an intimate gathering like
(16:46):
that you can really dive deepinto some questions that you
might not normally be willing toanswer in a broader session.
You can also have preparedcontent.
You say, for the first 15minutes I'm going to teach about
this and then after that we'lltalk about whatever you guys
want to talk about.
Those kinds of things are great.
(17:07):
Maybe I'll leave you with onemore thing here.
You know, metaphorically,philosophically and
metaphorically at the time thatthat solar eclipse occurred in
the Dallas area.
It was amazing.
I was amazed.
I'd never seen a total eclipsebefore.
(17:30):
I didn't even realize that Iwould be able to look at this
without eye protection.
I hadn't thought about it, tobe honest with you, and it was
creepy dark and, just like theysay, the birds stop chirping.
I mean it's really strange.
Okay, the pets started actingweird.
Everything that you read aboutthat happens during a solar
(17:52):
eclipse.
It happened.
I mean this is real right.
And I got to wondering whatmust this had been like 700
years ago, like we were talkingabout?
And I tell you what it was like.
People thought either the godswere angry or the world was
ending, or both, because ashadow had been cast upon them.
(18:15):
This happens to soloentrepreneurs in businesses.
Something happens you getlocked out of your email account
, you lose your biggest clientand it feels like a shadow has
been cast upon you.
That's what it feels like, justlike the eclipse.
But if you understand, like wedo now, it's just an eclipse,
(18:38):
right, the moon is going to moveoff, the sun is going to come
out tomorrow, to quote Annie,and everything's going to be
okay.
It's not that you can just donothing usually, but you'll be
able to work through it andthese things, whatever these
business obstacles are, willresolve themselves after an
(19:01):
amount of effort and timecombined together to move them
out of the way.
Right, you need to make theeffort, you need to let time go
by, but eventually thesebusiness struggles will be
resolved by you.
That means this is not the timeto quit when the eclipse comes.
That's not the time to say ohgoodbye, cruel world, I give up.
(19:25):
The sun is gone.
It's time to be aware of thefact that you can work through
these things, overcome them,overcome your obstacles in your
business and be successful onthe other side.
A lot of times, the only wayforward in business is through,
and the same is true for theeclipse.
(19:45):
Okay, that's what I've got foryou today.
Thank you for indulging me withthe eclipse episode as late as
it is.
I'm actually finally postingthis a month late, but, uh, I've
been thinking about it since ithappened and I wanted to share
it with you, just in case you'rein a part of the world where
you didn't get to see that Ciao.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
You can do it right when it's late at night You've
been listening to the Late NightInternet Marketing Podcast.
Be sure to visit LNIMpodcastcomtoday to leave feedback for
Mark, Download special bonuscontent, access the show notes
and more.
See you there.
Until then, go and make somegreat progress on your internet
(20:30):
business one night at a time.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Yeah, so the eclipse was super fun.
I'll tell you what my most funpart was my mom, who's, you know
, getting 70 something years oldnow uh, she had never seen uh
much.
I don't know if she'd ever seenit before, but she had
certainly, like me, never seen atotal eclipse and she was blown
(21:05):
away.
In fact, she's still talkingabout it a month later.
She, she just it just blew hermind, and it was so fun for me
to see her reaction to that.
She's not a science person, soshe wasn't jaded by all the
science education, right.
(21:25):
What she saw was that the sunwas there and then it
disappeared.
And, of course, she's a verysmart person.
She knows what's going on, shesees the news broadcast, she's
educated about what the rootcause is.
But from her perspective, as aperson whose job is not to think
about miraculous things all thetime, mine is she was stunned
(21:51):
by it and that made me so happyto watch that.
That was my personal highlightfor the eclipse ciao late night
internet marketing.
Episode 262.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Late Night Internet Marketing.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
This week on the Late Night Internet Marketing
podcast, we finally publish along overdue episode about the
solar eclipse that just happenedhere in Texas.
Actually, it happened a monthago and I'm finally getting the
episode out now.
But there are some marketinglessons, believe it or not, that
we can learn from the totaleclipse of the sun.
(00:31):
All this and more on the LateNight Internet Marketing Podcast
.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
The Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast.
My friend, yes, you can do itright when it's late at night.
At the end of the day, yourdreams burn in your sights.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Keep it up and you will find that you're building
your business one night at atime and now broadcasting late
at night from a little studio inthe big state of Texas, your
host, mark Mason.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Hey, hey, hey, how is everyone doing?
I am your host, mark Mason, andtoday we're going to talk a
little bit about the totaleclipse of the sun that happened
here in Dallas, texas.
Actually, it happened all overthe United States, but the total
eclipse only happened in anarrow band up through from
(01:53):
Mexico up into the Northeast.
They call this the path oftotality, and if you count all
the people in Mexico, all theway up through the United States
and into Canada, all the peoplethat are in the path of
totality, it was about 31million people that got to see
(02:14):
this thing.
Now, I had never before seen atotal eclipse.
I've seen lots of partialeclipses, lots of partial
eclipses, and as an engineer bytraining, I know a lot about
astronomy and other things thatare related to science, because
science is my jam when I'm notdoing marketing.
But I was surprised to learnthat a lot of people don't
(02:39):
really know what a solar eclipseis, and so, to put it simply, a
solar eclipse is a situationwhere the moon gets exactly
between you and the sun andcasts a shadow on you, either
partially or totally, as in thiscase.
And it's a lot more complicatedand interesting than that,
(03:02):
because the orbits areelliptical and things are tilted
and if you're an astronomer, Ithink it's super interesting.
If you're not an astronomer,that's just a shadow that the
moon is casting on the Earth andit is a remarkable thing and it
made me wonder as this thingwas happening was happening.
(03:28):
It's easy for me to say thatthat's what is going on, because
I have the benefit of Galileoand Copernicus and NASA and JPL
and all this amazing sciencethat's happened in the last 500
years, but 500 or 600 or athousand years ago, when
eclipses came, it must have beenreally freaky, because we as a
species, when we don'tunderstand something, we try to
(03:49):
explain it just the best that wecan.
Most of the time we make stuffup like Greek gods and stuff to
explain things, and so you know,I can imagine it was really
weird.
But I thought, since I you know,I wanted an excuse to talk
about the eclipse.
It was really awesome.
(04:09):
We're going to get into that alittle bit.
I thought my excuse would bethere's some marketing lessons
buried into the eclipse that wecan pull out, and it made me
laugh because that's totally anexcuse and I'm sure you get that
.
But there are some marketingthings that we can talk about in
terms of the eclipse that arekind of interesting.
And I think the first thing thatwe can talk about in terms of
(04:34):
the eclipse is I noticed thatfor months and months ahead of
time, we had discussions abouthow to prepare for the eclipse,
had discussions about how toprepare for the eclipse, what
the eclipse was going to looklike, what equipment you needed
all of the exact moving partsthat needed to happen in order
(04:54):
for you, the viewer, tosuccessfully watch the eclipse
and have the best experience.
And what it reminded me of froma marketing standpoint is a
product launch.
When you go to launch a productand you've got this situation
where you need to create theproduct, plan it out and create
(05:15):
it and, even before that, do themarket research, and then you
need to prepare landing pagesand lead magnets and a traffic
strategy branding pages and leadmagnets and a traffic strategy.
You need to usually buy ads andcreate email sequences and
figure out a way to get theproduct in front of your
audience.
If you're using a productlaunch formula approach, you've
got timed releases of contentthat you're worried about and
(05:39):
you're doing all thispreparation so that on a day or
over the course of several daysor a couple of weeks you can
launch your product.
That's exactly like gettingprepared for the solar eclipse,
and the better that you prepare,the more enjoyable your four
and a half minutes of totaleclipse are going to be.
(05:59):
That's what we enjoyed.
Actually, I'm a little bit offthe center line here in Dallas,
so we had a couple of minutes oftotal eclipse and we had no
stress.
It was easy peasy, we had fun.
We sat out by the pool andwatch the eclipse.
It was totally memorable.
We had planned and got mymother up to Dallas in time so
that she could watch it with us.
(06:20):
I had actually secured specialanzi certified glass that we
could look through.
That's used by welders, so thatwe wouldn't have to rely on the
less expensive solar glasseswhich we we also used.
We considered doing photography, but decided not to do that.
You guys know my wife is aphotographer, but we did a lot
(06:43):
of planning and had a totallyenjoyable time.
I think likewise, if you puteffort into your marketing
launches like that and do atremendous amount of planning
around your launch, you canthoroughly enjoy that launch
process and do it without theneed of having a lot of stress.
(07:04):
The second thing that theeclipse made me think of, which
I thought was really interesting, is this was really a niche
market inside the United States.
A band going all the way acrossthe north to the south were the
people that were impacted bythis, and if you were selling
(07:27):
Eclipse glasses, that's whereyour niche market was.
Now, of course, the partialeclipse was available elsewhere
in the United States.
That's kind of normal, but thenumber of people that I know
that were outside watching theeclipse in the Dallas area, for
example, was approximately 100%.
That's a niche market andthat's very analogous to what
(07:51):
goes on in marketing.
You know, there's this sayingthat we've always talked about
the riches are in the niches,which is unfortunate.
That riches doesn't rhyme withniches, but you get the idea.
The riches are in the nichesand that's where people who need
to solve a particular problemthat you can communicate with
(08:12):
directly.
Those people are the ones thatneed your product and you need
to find those people and in thecase of this eclipse, those
people were actually in thisband where totality was
happening.
That's where all the action was, all the excitement and, sure,
(08:36):
there were sales outside of theniche.
There were people in Nevadathat were buying glasses to
watch the partial eclipse.
But the majority of the salesand the highest market
penetration for sales of thesesolar eclipse glasses were
definitely in this niche oftotal eclipse, this path of
totality.
That happened across the UnitedStates, and we know this
because we know where that pathis and we get ready to do this
(08:58):
from a marketing standpoint bydoing marketing research,
identifying our niche andfocusing down on it.
We want to be selling tospecifically someone, not to
everyone.
We want to delight a particularcustomer and, yeah, we will
also make sales to othercustomers.
That's inevitable and great andwe can have approaches for that
(09:23):
.
But if we're not selling tosomebody, we're effectively
selling to nobody.
So, niches niches are reallyimportant.
Okay, the other thing that Ithink is really telling is that,
in general, if you're workingin a niche, some kind of
marketing niche whether it's theactual online business niche,
(09:44):
like I'm in, or you're in golf,or you're doing whatever you're
doing, whatever expertise thatyou're using to help people
solve a problem, whether you'rehelping people with their blood
pressure or diabetes, or you'rehelping people with their
finances whatever niche you'rein woodworking, whatever it is
(10:05):
those people need tools and,just like everyone that was
involved with the solar eclipseabsolutely needed eclipse
glasses.
People in your niche.
They need tools.
You need to figure out whattools that your people need and
(10:25):
help them decide which toolsthey need to buy.
So if you've got a brand aroundbaseball commentary, so let's
say that you've got a brandaround analyzing what's going on
in major league baseball.
The people in your niche thatare looking to you for
commentary on baseball.
(10:46):
They also need tools of variouskinds.
They need merch for your brandand merch for MLB, and there's
probably a lot of baseballplayers in your niche and maybe
you niche down and your contentis directly targeted at people
who play baseball, who also areinterested in watching
professional baseball.
However you're doing it, thereare people that need merchandise
(11:08):
.
You need to help them.
Help people understand what itis that they need, discover
things that maybe they weren'teven aware of, new tools and new
products and new opportunitiesfor them to up their game,
whatever it is that they'redoing and help them sort through
all that stuff and decide whatthe right product for them is
(11:30):
and establish affiliate orinfluencer relationships with
those brands.
Just like the people in theeclipse needed glasses, your
people need tools and I'll tellyou what the niche inside the
niche on this eclipse thing wasthe photographers.
So I happened to go down to myfavorite photography place here
(11:53):
in Dallas competitive camerashout out to those guys they are
absolutely amazing.
Ask for Eugene at competitivecamera and tell him that Mark
sent you.
That dude is amazing.
And he was covered up,literally covered up.
I went in the store and theywere covered up with people
buying special solar filters andother photography equipment so
(12:18):
that they could photograph theeclipse.
Because those people interestedin that eclipse they needed
special tools.
And you can bet that if you area photography influencer or you
had a photography blog or youwere creating photography
content on YouTube during thistime, you were taking advantage
(12:40):
of that event and you wereselling merchandise or
influencing people to buyparticular products.
You know, the final thing thatI'll leave you with from the
eclipse that I thought wasinteresting was that you needed
to be careful and you had totake a lot of safety measures
(13:01):
from the eclipse and from amarketing standpoint, we need to
do absolutely the same thingPeople who were watching the
eclipse.
They needed to have properlycertified safety glasses.
They need to make sure theydidn't forget and they weren't
careless and didn't accidentallylook around the glasses or
forget to put the glasses on andlook up at the sun, and so
(13:23):
forth.
Marketers, we need to be morecareful about security measures
like two-factor authentication,easy-to-guess passwords, locking
down our email, making sure wehave a way to recover accounts
if they're compromised, and soforth.
We need to be very carefulabout that because most of us
online entrepreneurs our entirebusiness and if you're doing
(13:46):
this to support your family,your entire livelihood, is an
electronic situation online thatyou need to protect and you
need to be taking measures to dothat.
You need to be implementingtwo-factor, you need to be
staying up to date with securitypatches on your computer and
all these things.
We don't really talk about themso much, but more and more I
hear stories of even people thatI know, love and respect that
(14:11):
have account compromises happento them even when they're
careful.
So it's doubly important foryou to keep things locked down
and, just like you're makingsure that you have ANSI
certified solar eclipse viewingglasses, you need to make sure
that you're using two-factorauthentication and great
passwords on all of youraccounts.
(14:34):
The final thing I'll leave youwith this sense of community
that you saw with the solareclipse, like on my block, we
actually had a block party andthat was a great thing.
I wasn't able to attend becauseI was busy doing my own thing,
but that was a cool deal andpeople from my neighborhood got
together and they watched thesolar eclipse together, building
(14:54):
a sense of community.
You should be doing that withyour brand.
My favorite story around thiswas one time many years ago, I
reached out to listeners of thelate night internet marketing
podcast and invited them to joinme for a beer at a local pub.
Now, at that time, I was asmall podcast but I had
(15:15):
listeners in the Dallas area,which is kind of remarkable
because this podcast is listenedto in over a hundred countries.
Listeners are spread out allover the world.
I don't know where you areright now, but chances are
you're not in Dallas, but therewere a handful of people, which
was super cool.
I invited them to a pub.
I bought appetizers, theybought their own alcohol and we
(15:38):
sat around a table and there wasmore than a dozen people there
just talking about their onlinebusinesses.
This was way back in, probablyin 2010 or 2011,.
Around that time frame, thesekind of meetups and things can
be really cool, and I think youmight be surprised, if you offer
those kind of things to yourcommunity, how they'll be
(15:59):
interested in taking advantageof that, maybe even in some
cases driving relatively longdistances to come make a
connection.
People crave this sort ofcommunity, and you can't quite
get all the way there.
Online, online community isgreat, but you can't get all the
way there, and so if you dothings in the real world IRL as
(16:23):
the gamers say then thatprovides a significant value to
your community, no matter whatniche you're in.
That's something that I thinkcould be considered, and you can
do that in a way that is notjust for hanging out, but you
can offer value.
You can do an AMA session thatway.
I think.
Ask Me Anything.
Sessions are really cool, andin an intimate gathering like
(16:46):
that you can really dive deepinto some questions that you
might not normally be willing toanswer in a broader session.
You can also have preparedcontent.
You say, for the first 15minutes I'm going to teach about
this and then after that we'lltalk about whatever you guys
want to talk about.
Those kinds of things are great.
(17:07):
Maybe I'll leave you with onemore thing here.
You know, metaphorically,philosophically and
metaphorically at the time thatthat solar eclipse occurred in
the Dallas area.
It was amazing.
I was amazed.
I'd never seen a total eclipsebefore.
(17:30):
I didn't even realize that Iwould be able to look at this
without eye protection.
I hadn't thought about it, tobe honest with you, and it was
creepy dark and, just like theysay, the birds stop chirping.
I mean it's really strange.
Okay, the pets started actingweird.
Everything that you read aboutthat happens during a solar
(17:52):
eclipse.
It happened.
I mean this is real right.
And I got to wondering whatmust this had been like 700
years ago, like we were talkingabout?
And I tell you what it was like.
People thought either the godswere angry or the world was
ending, or both, because ashadow had been cast upon them.
(18:15):
This happens to soloentrepreneurs in businesses.
Something happens you getlocked out of your email account
, you lose your biggest clientand it feels like a shadow has
been cast upon you.
That's what it feels like, justlike the eclipse.
But if you understand, like wedo now, it's just an eclipse,
(18:38):
right, the moon is going to moveoff, the sun is going to come
out tomorrow, to quote Annie,and everything's going to be
okay.
It's not that you can just donothing usually, but you'll be
able to work through it andthese things, whatever these
business obstacles are, willresolve themselves after an
(19:01):
amount of effort and timecombined together to move them
out of the way.
Right, you need to make theeffort, you need to let time go
by, but eventually thesebusiness struggles will be
resolved by you.
That means this is not the timeto quit when the eclipse comes.
That's not the time to say ohgoodbye, cruel world, I give up.
(19:25):
The sun is gone.
It's time to be aware of thefact that you can work through
these things, overcome them,overcome your obstacles in your
business and be successful onthe other side.
A lot of times, the only wayforward in business is through,
and the same is true for theeclipse.
(19:45):
Okay, that's what I've got foryou today.
Thank you for indulging me withthe eclipse episode as late as
it is.
I'm actually finally postingthis a month late, but, uh, I've
been thinking about it since ithappened and I wanted to share
it with you, just in case you'rein a part of the world where
you didn't get to see that Ciao.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
You can do it right when it's late at night You've
been listening to the Late NightInternet Marketing Podcast.
Be sure to visit LNIMpodcastcomtoday to leave feedback for
Mark, Download special bonuscontent, access the show notes
and more.
See you there.
Until then, go and make somegreat progress on your internet
(20:30):
business one night at a time.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Yeah, so the eclipse was super fun.
I'll tell you what my most funpart was my mom, who's, you know
, getting 70 something years oldnow uh, she had never seen uh
much.
I don't know if she'd ever seenit before, but she had
certainly, like me, never seen atotal eclipse and she was blown
(21:05):
away.
In fact, she's still talkingabout it a month later.
She, she just it just blew hermind, and it was so fun for me
to see her reaction to that.
She's not a science person, soshe wasn't jaded by all the
science education, right.
(21:25):
What she saw was that the sunwas there and then it
disappeared.
And, of course, she's a verysmart person.
She knows what's going on, shesees the news broadcast, she's
educated about what the rootcause is.
But from her perspective, as aperson whose job is not to think
about miraculous things all thetime, mine is she was stunned
(21:51):
by it and that made me so happyto watch that.
That was my personal highlightfor the eclipse ciao late night
internet marketing.
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