Dear Friend,

In the last issue, I reviewed Mike Mograbi's 378 Internet Marketing Predictions. Joe Vitale, who first turned me onto this book, did a one hour call with Mike this week and he's an amazing guy.

He lives in Lebanon and is a former stock broker and economist. Making predictions isn't new to him. But in his book many of the things he talks about aren't true predictions. They're things that currently exist or are in development that most of us just aren't aware of.

One of his predictions involves 3D desktop architecture. After reading his comments, I downloaded the free version of the desktop at 3dna.com. The paid version adds more space but the freebie is fully functional and I love the layout. It's so much easier to use than the mass of icons on the current windows desktop. Check it out.

And if you haven't done so, I highly recommend picking up this book. Click here for details

This week, I've included an article that will remind you of my American Idol articles. Only this time the Internet marketing lesson involves baseball rather than pop stars.

Finally, as I mentioned in the email that sent you to this page, I'm having to try some new things with the ezine so we don't have to deal with spam filters. In addition to putting the HTML version online, you can also pick it up using a free desktop reader. I've been experimenting with it for a few days and I like it. You'll also be able to keep up with back issues this way. I've already loaded the previous issues and will put more up over the next week or so.

If you'd like to give it a whirl, you can download the free reader. Save the file to your desktop or hard drive and double-click to install. Click here to download the desktop reader.

Have a great weekend!

I was working with a group of consulting clients recently that were about to launch their new website for marketers. They asked me to critique their site design. Their site was fairly typical of many sites I see.

There were pages for a paid membership site with various price levels, a coaching program, for a leads package, a book-of-the-month club, a live event promotion and lots of other things. As the site looks now, visitors will be very confused. When people are confused, they generally don't buy something.

The clients have a lot of great ideas but the advice I gave them was to narrow the focus of their website to a single objective, getting people to sign up for their membership site. Once they accomplished that objective, they could then introduce some of these other products and services.

They understood what I was suggesting but I was concerned they weren't clear on why this was necessary. As I watched an Astros game later that evening, a perfect analogy came to me.

There's loads of content, lots of different options, a multitude of products, ticket packages, etc. But there's a big difference between Astros.com and my client's site.

What's different is visitors on Astros.com are already Astros fans. They aren't discovering the team via the website. They come wanting Astros news, tickets or merchandise, etc.

My clients shouldn't model Astros.com. What they should model is the way the Astros ownership markets their 'products' offline.

If you meet Astros owner Drayton McLane and ask what line of work he's in, he'll tell you he owns a baseball team. He probably won't say... 'I'm in the baseball, ticket-selling, concessions, souvenir, parking, space advertising, luxury suite, restaurant, scorecard, broadcast programming and stadium-naming rights selling business.'

That would be ridiculous and that's not what the team does in their marketing. Although they do sell beer, hot dogs, programs, pennants, caps, nachos, peanuts, sodas, jerseys, parking, scorecards, cotton candy, etc., they don't try to sell you all that when they advertise.

Instead, they advertise the game. Period. The objective is selling tickets. Tickets are sold various price levels. Field Boxes are $30, Mezzanine is $20, Upper Deck is $15, Outfield Bleachers are $10 or they have season ticket packages. (That's the upsell). Nothing else is advertised.

Once you've bought tickets and head for the ballpark, they'll sell you parking. You've got to park your car, right?

What happens next?... Programs here! Get your programs! You fork over $3 for a program and a scorecard. You may also notice on the back of your ticket that if you stop by Pizza Hut, you can get $2 off with your stub. You may also spot an ads on the turnstiles and along the walkways.

En route to your seats, you'll pass the souvenir stands. The kids want caps or pennants. They've also got jerseys, souvenir balls, jackets, etc.

You haven't even gotten to your seat yet and you already need an ATM machine. Don't worry, they have one. You're going to need it because the concession stand is next. And while you're watching the game, vendors roam the aisles selling beer, peanuts, cotton candy, ice cream and so on.

I could go on but you get the idea. But it all starts with getting you to buy a ticket. Once they get you to the ballpark, they'll probably sell something else to you. And if you enjoy the experience, you'll come back again.

When the Astros can't get you to buy a ticket, they hope you'll tune into the game which means they can expose you to advertising. Maybe you won't buy a ticket but you'll buy something you see advertised while watching the game for free.

On a website, that's the equivalent of getting someone to sign up for your ezine. You may not get them to 'buy a ticket' but you can at least get them to 'watch for free' and give you opportunities to sell them something and maybe 'buy a ticket' down the line.

Maybe they won't ever buy anything. Does that mean you don't want them? No, you want them. The Astros get ad dollars based on the number of viewers. The number of subscribers can help you in the same way. The larger your list, the better joint venture deals you can negotiate. If you sell ads in your ezine, then the larger your list, the more you can charge for advertising. So even the cheapskates have value even if they do nothing more than tune in for zero dollars. And they may tell others about you that will spend money.

Does your website focus on a single objective? It better be... or your website will be as lonely as an empty stadium.

By the way, if you find the idea of pulling in steady money every month with a membership site but aren't sure what's involved, I recommend checking out Terry Dean & Kirt Christensen's audio program, "Paid Member Sites". You can find out more here.