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If you look around the Net today you could forgiven for thinking that marketing is an incredibly involved science and you really need to be an expert marketer to make any money online.

Of course, if you're not a marketer and you want to learn to become one there are print books, e-books, videos, newsletter, blogs, courses, podcasts and a plethora of other stuff out there that's guaranteed to show you how to start making money in just a few hours. We're even got a swarm of highly successful marketers who will sell you their soul in an easily downloadable e-book for just $39.95.

Of course, with those guys you do have to ask yourself one very serious question. If they're so successful at what they're doing then why are they so willing to give away all their secrets for such a paltry sum? And of course the answer is that the only marketing secret they have is that they're getting you to pay $39.95 for something that's worth absolutely nothing.

I'm sure that very occasionally you will find a real gem being offered by a true expert but finding those gems amongst all the rubbish that's online is a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. But is it really necessary to go looking through all those haystacks? Is it really necessary to read all those blogs, print books, e-books and take the courses and watch the video?

Well at some point in your marketing career some of those books, blogs and videos can be quite helpful. For example, anything that comes with the Eisenberg brand on it is definitely worth looking at ... and usually anything that they might point to is worth following too. However, when you're first starting out there are only one thing that you really need ... it's free and hopefully you've already got two of them.

Your eyes
That thing that you need are your eyes ... yep if you can see then you can learn marketing for free. There are no e-books, print books or courses needed if you come equipped with eyes that can see. All you have to be prepared to do is go out your front door, wander down to the mall or supermarket and look around you.

Yes, it really is that simple! Go out into the real world and observe what marketing methods other people are using. As I've often said here and in other places before ... your supermarket is a great place to learn effective marketing. Look at where they place their in-store advertising ... look at where different products are placed around the store ... look at where they place products that are so obviously impulse-buys ... look at the colors that are used in the advertising and on the various products and see which ones stand out and which ones don't.

Head down to your local weekend markets and look at which stalls are actually attracting people and which ones don't. Just this last weekend we had a cultural festival on in town and there were a lot of stalls on site that sold various items. Most of the stalls were offering things that were quite unique and not offered by anyone else but there were two stalls ... within 100 feet of each other ... that were selling the exact same item. One was getting a lot of business while the other wasn't doing much at all.

So what was the difference? Well one stall was brightly colored and the person doing the selling was a young girl who spent a lot of time laughing and smiling at her customers. The other stall had much more subdued colors and the guy doing the selling looked glum and I don't think I saw him smile once.

And which one was selling the most product? Well you don't have to be Einstein to work out the answer for that question and you don't need to be a marketing guru to understand why the brightly colored stall was doing the most business either.

Those are the sort of lessons you learn when you walk around with your eyes open apply them to your websites and you'll make money.