Build awareness of a product or destination, and reshape existing perceptions;

Generate interest;

Provide information to turn interest into desire;

Transact actual purchase or series of purchases;

Provide reassurance of a good purchase and offer preparatory information for actual tourism experience;

Continue to provide information, shape perception, and improve experience during tourist's journey;

Aid and deepen memories after tourism experience;

Build upon your relationship to your customer, to add value for both you and tourist; and

Encourage referrals and generate repeat business.

There are different goals to achieve and appropriate methods of communication for each of these circumstances. Adding further complexity is fact that different people (family members, friends, co-workers, etc.) may be involved and have varying importance at different stages of one purchase decision! In conclusion

Despite these complexities, there are some basic guidelines which will help you communicate and market effectively online. The next in this series of articles presents advice for attracting visitors to your website.

(Seattle, USA; August 2004)

2) Mike Cheney: http://www.magnet4web.com talks about building an effective and efficient business web site.

3) Jill Whalen: http://www.highrankings.com talks about Search Engine Optimization.

Of course there are more out there, but it is not necessary to subscribe to every Internet Marketing newsletter just to hope for nuggets of gold that may never come. Instead, give guru a "trial" month, and if you don't find anything of value from them, just unsubscribe. It will only be a loss to them, not you.

Who's Real and Who's Not?

To answer this question, you really have to "get around" Internet a lot. Go to forums where you will definately find topics on info-products offered by these gurus, and see what others are saying about them. Forget about all those blaring testimonials that guru's compile on their site. Forums are where real testimonials are. You may also want to consider this site:

GuruDaq : http://www.gurudaq.com

Taking on a Nasdaq-like approach, this site lists all gurus according to ratings and 'stock price'. Although I would advice to take it more as an entertainment that actual recommendations, perhaps this site will allow you to get a glimpse of "who's who" in Internet Marketing.

Whose methods should I follow?

Honestly, nobody's. At least not word-for-word of what is thought in their newsletters or ebooks. The important thing to realize is that you need to develop your own technique to be really successful. The guru's don't teach you everything, anyway. They almost always feed you crop but keep cream for themselves. In other words, no one really tells you "hot money-making secrets", especially those guru's that have sold their soul a long time ago.

Its really up to you to learn some tips and tricks of trade from them, but set out on your own course. In order to be successful in anything, you need to do your own thing. Be original in you approach, whether it's writing sales letters, doing email marketing, pay-per-click or search engine optimization.

Don't look to someone who has sold their soul to lead you to path of success. That's wishful thinking.