The infomarketing world is a pretty interesting one.  There are a lot of smart, ethical folks doing really, really well – and a fair share of people that are, well…not folks that I’d consider ethical or even remotely close to being experts in the information they’re selling.

But pretty much all of them that are doing well have some stuff in common.  They have sound business models that they know inside and out.  They track everything to see what works.

Because of this – they’ve developed pretty efficient ‘machines’ that fitness pros can learn a lot from.  Here’s an overview of some of those infomarketing concepts that you can apply to your business.

Traffic – Most of the infomarketers I know are very good at using 1 or 2 sources of traffic.  Some are great at media buys.  Some are awesome at SEO.  Some know Facebook or Google Ads inside out. Others are great at leveraging affiliates.  I don’t know many – if any that are great at all of it.

You should be the same way.  You can generate plenty of leads by being great at a couple of marketing strategies.  If you get great at public speaking and Facebook Ads, you probably don’t need to be strong at running Business of the Month promos or Joint Ventures.  This doesn’t mean you should ignore other strategies – but it does mean that you should work to become great at a couple and spend less time on the rest.

Tracking – The most successful infomarketers know their numbers inside and out. They know where their leads come from.  They know how many convert to buyers.  They know what percentage take their upsell offers.  They know their ROI on every marketing dollar.  They know a bunch of other details that would probably take me an entire blog post to explain – and knowing all this stuff makes them money.

So at minimum you should track:

• Where your leads are coming from
• What percentage of those leads you close
• The lifetime and average monthly value of your clients
• Your client’s usage rates
• Your client’s referrals

There are plenty of others that are valuable – but start with these.

A Marketing Funnel – Many info businesses use a marketing funnel that looks something like this:

So how could you use this type of approach in your business? Here’s an example:

Do me a favor and look at your business and see what is here that you’re missing or that you can improve on.  There’s a lot to learn from other businesses outside your industry -and this is a great example.  Tell me if you picked up any ideas below.

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

An interesting conjunction of variables from the folks at Northwestern University’s School of Medicine: Religious participation is correlated with obesity.

Could it be the potato salad? Young adults who frequently attend religious activities are 50 percent more likely to become obese by middle age then are young adults with no religious involvement, according to new Northwestern Medicine research. This is the first longitudinal study to examine the development of obesity in people with various degrees of religious involvement.

“We don’t know why frequent religious participation is associated with development of obesity, but the upshot is these findings highlight a group that could benefit from targeted efforts at obesity prevention,” said Matthew Feinstein, the study’s lead investigator… ”It’s possible that getting together once a week and associating good works and happiness with eating unhealthy foods could lead to the development of habits that are associated with greater body weight and obesity.”

Full story

Now, notice that this doesn’t mean going to synagogue makes you fat. This isn’t causation. But again… hmmm.

Follow up on yesterday’s partial nutrient analysis of a Paleo-type diet. Here’s how I rounded out the day.

Calories are a little low because I ate at a restaurant (raw vegan, even! I overshot my protein target even without protein at one meal) and I don’t think I quite accounted properly for the meal, but it’s close enough. I got the kale in there, anyway…

1525 calories, 22% carbs, 46% fat, 32% protein

Protein – 121 g (I’m currently around 118 lb with body fat % around 17%, so that’s about 1 g/lb of bodyweight – right on the money for a leaner athletic woman)

Still around 5 g of omega-3 fatty acids; 10 g of omega-6. I could do better with the ratio there.

Now the fun part! Here are the vitamins and minerals.

Vitamin A – 701% of RDA (again, largely in the more biologically active form of animal-derived retinols)
Vitamin C – 583%
Vitamin D – 2%
Vitamin E – 51%
Vitamin K – 856%!!!!
Thiamin – 60%
Riboflavin – 128%
Niacin – 155%
Vitamin B6 – 126%
Folate – 175% (again, this is food folate, not an additive)
Vitamin B12 – 176%
Pantothenic Acid – 72%

Calcium – 75%
Magnesium – 113%Iron – 144%
Potassium – 91%
Sodium – 21% (remember we want sodium to be relatively lower compared to potassium)
Phosphorus – 108%
Zinc – 52%
Copper – 79%
Manganese – 198%
Selenium – 171%

Again, if you’re curious to see how your eats stack up, try tracking your intake using NutritionData.com, which has a very robust data analysis including, probably, nutrients you’ve never heard of (campesterol? WTF?). Before you proclaim the superiority or inferiority of any given diet, throw it up on the wall, nail some numbers into it, and see if it sticks.

Ask yourself: How is this eating method working for you?

• What is the quality of your intake?
• How do you feel when you consume your diet?
• How do you perform athletically?
• How does your body run? How’s your bloodwork?
• Is your body fat in a healthy range? Are you muscular and strong? (Or working on it?)
• Where did this food come from? How many steps did it take to get to you?

This goes way beyond calories and macronutrients — it’s an issue of nutrient quality and availability. As Mat Lalonde has been heard to quip, you can make a “macronutrient balanced” and “calorically appropriate” meal of soy meat, fructose, and corn oil… but would you want to?