Last night Episode 3 of “The Apprentice (Season 5)” was an interesting one.

There were 2 main lessons for Internet Marketers here:

Lesson 1: Having a “Theme” For Powerful Integrating Marketing

You need a theme for your website (or your sales page).  A theme which give your site an identity that your visitors will brand you with.  With one common “theme”, you can better integrate all your marketing efforts to give that 1-2 punch.  For example, on a golf website, you can promote information/products for golf equipment, golf locations, golf travel consideration etc.

But once you try to merge in products from Wine tasting, rock-climbing etc in the same message or website, you loose your identity.  This will kills your conversions and your credibility.  Not only that, you would not have enough time to cover all the various areas.

Lesson 2:  Have Plan B … ALWAYS!

Quoting from Donald Trump in the show:

“In any business, you need to be flexible. You need to always to be prepared with Plan B should your initial plan failed.”

In Internet Marketing, things move very FAST.  You need to be flexible and have the ability to change if you are to succeed.  If you have a major product launch, you would also need to have Plan B at the back of your mind … ALWAYS.

For example, if you are expecting a huge amount of cash to flow during your product launch, you need to have a few options for your payment processor.  Click here for further discussion on how to protect your Paypal Account in such launches.

Anyway back to this show.

In this episode, each team was to organize a corporate retreat for some of the top dealer/owners of General Motors. The centerpiece of the retreat was the unveiling of the 2007 Chevy Tahoe. The team that received the best evaluation would win.

Below is what I found to be relevant lessons to our online business.  Avoid the mistakes and model after the effective methods.

1. “Gold Rush” did the following wrong this round:

At the start, they did well in organizing/planning the activities. However half-way through the planning, discussions went off in different directions and there was no common theme identified. Instead a mix of unconnected activities were planned out.  If you are having un-related activities on your website, your visitors will not stick.

1. “Synergy” did the following right this round:

They started out analyzing the product and came out with the theme “Nature Refined” which ties in with the product that they were going to promote.

With the theme identified, they mapped out the 3 activities in their show (ie. rock climbing, races, fly-fishing etc).  Furthermore, they then planned and integrated their briefings to the dealers while they were in the midst of the activities.  As the dealers doesn’t felt being pitched to, this went down quite well.

To apply this lesson to your online business, you could plan out your autoresponder sequence such that it integrate with the overall theme giving content before presenting your pitch.

Another point that the team did correct was that they were able to come up with Plan B immediately when one of their activities were not allowed in the park.  In your online business, you will hit challenges.  This is normal part of business.  You need to be prepared and be flexible (eg. change your payment processor or change your commission structure etc)

The end results after this episode was “Gold Rush” - 1 and “Synergy” - 2

Above are the 2 main differences that I noted in this episode that is relevant to Marketers and Infopreneurs. Tuned in next week for my review of the next episode.

Picture from this official site.

Related postings:

• My Compilation “The Apprentice” Lessons
• Lesson 1 - Creating Successful Buzz
• Lesson 2 - Location, Location, Location

To Your Success,
Keith Choy

Tag: the apprentice, integration marketing, internet marketing