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Archive | May, 2020

Make More Sales with Engagement Emails

It’s tempting to send offer after offer to your list in the hopes of making the most money. Yet this is also a sure fire way to alienate your readers and send them packing. If all you ever do is pitch them in every email, they’re either going to stop opening your emails, or simply unsubscribe. In either case, you are no longer relevant to your list. So when it comes time to promote your own products, no one will be listening.

Make More Sales with Engagement Emails

There is a better way, and it’s to provide content along with the promotions. The problem is in knowing what kind of content to give them. What do they want to know? How long is it going to take you to research it and write it? And will it even be read?

The key is to think ‘engagement’ over selling. If you can continually engage your audience, then you can continually sell to them as well, at a reasonable pace.

Think of it this way: Every engagement email is like building your goodwill account. Every promotional email is like cashing in on that account. Both are equally important.

Here are 4 reasons to send engagement type emails:

1. They take the pressure off of you and let you have fun with your list. Let’s face it – if every email you send is trying to convince people to buy yet another product, you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself to continually SELL SELL SELL. And you know in your heart of hearts that your list does NOT want another email telling them to BUY BUY BUY. Which means you are having NO FUN writing nothing but promotional emails. Who can blame you?

Even a born sales person likes to take some time off and just shoot the breeze, talk about sports, do some gardening, whatever. Well, you and your list need time off as well. And we don’t mean time when they don’t hear from you, but instead time when you have something to say that doesn’t involve them reaching for their wallets yet again.

2. You can be their go-to person in your niche. If all you do is sell, then they always have their guard up when they open your emails – and with good reason. But if you can show them how to do things without buying, and even how to buy better, you can become the authority they like and trust.

3. You can email more often. If you only send promotional emails, you better either keep the frequency down or expect to burn your list. But if you’re sending engagement type emails, you don’t have to worry about how often you email (within reason.) Who doesn’t want to hear the latest news or tips or tricks in their favorite niche? Send it out, they WANT to read this stuff.

A funny thing happens when you send out engagement type emails and then you take a few days off – your list will write to you asking where you are and if you’re okay. When this happens, you know you’ve created magic.

4. You can cheat. Big time. What I mean by this is you can reuse material you’ve already written. Did you write a dynamite blog post earlier this year that got rave reviews? Break it up into several emails and send it out. Do you have a report on how to do something that is full of great tips? Break it up into several emails and send it out.

You don’t always have to come up with new material for engagement emails – you can reuse stuff from your articles and posts. Nice!

Here are 10 topics you can write about besides the usual ‘buy this’ stuff:

1. The latest news in your niche AND how it might affect your readers. Don’t just give the news – personalize it with your own take and your thoughts on how it might impact your list.

2. Tips, tricks and great ideas on how to do things in your niche. Everyone wants the latest hack on how to do something easier/faster/cheaper/better. So let them in on the secrets.

3. Teach your list how to be a savvy shopper in your niche. What should they look out for? What features are must-have, and what should they avoid? This is a great way to make yourself into the authority.

4. 3 minute interviews. Send email interviews to authorities in your niche and create emails from those interviews. These don’t need to be long – 1 to 5 questions is all you need.

5. Spotlight your customers. Show how Bill bought your product and used it with good results. Talk about the obstacles he had to overcome, the problems he solved, and anything else that might interest your readers.

6. Show your list how to USE your product. If they’ve purchased, this is helpful. If they haven’t, they get to feel what it would be like if they did purchase. Either way, it’s a win-win.

7. Stuff for your list only. Give your list benefits that people can get nowhere else. This might be free products, insider information or special discounts. Make these special benefits expire to train your list to open your emails as soon as they receive them.

8. Stories. People LOVE stories. Don’t get wordy, do start in the middle of the story where the action is, and always make it entertaining as well as relevant to your niche.

9. Seasonal tips. If you’re in a niche that changes with the seasons, this is perfect. For example, if your niche is sports then fall is the time to talk about the upcoming ski season, while spring is when you can talk about baseball, soccer, etc. Is your niche cooking? Talk about seasonal foods. Even if your niche isn’t seasonal, with a little creativity you can still use this angle.

10. Personality and humor. You don’t want to ramble on about yourself or your business, but injecting your own personality is terrific and highly recommended. And anytime you can make your readers smile or even laugh, you’re sure to get them to open your next email.

What not to talk about in your emails:

– Too much personal info. A line or two about yourself is fine, but unless you’re telling a story that is of particular interest to your readers, don’t overdo it. No one wants to know your life history, at least not in a broadcast email.

– How terrible your competition is. There is an exception to this rule: If one of your customers has a personal story of their experience with your competition, you can use it. But YOU cannot trash your competition. Even if every word you say is true, it still makes you look like a jerk.

By sending out engagement emails, you won’t burn your list, you’ll build rapport with your list, and in the end you wind up selling more than if you simply sent promotional emails. Plus your list will actually LIKE you and say nice things about you in social media, which is always a plus.

Email’s Customers Want To Read…

I am sure you’ve heard the term “email marketing” before, but more than likely you have seen it especially in your in-box. It’s everywhere! Your favorite companies have more than likely sent you a message telling you about a product. This is email marketing in its purest form. Does this sound like something you would want to use? If it is, then continue reading.

Playing with fonts is fun, and you may be tempted to spice up your emails with exotic fonts. Resist that temptation! Fonts may display differently or even be replaced by defaults, on someone else’s computer. Even if an odd font does display correctly, there is no guarantee that your recipient will appreciate it the same way you do. To avoid any font-based mishaps, stick with fonts that are widespread, easy to read and understated.

Your color scheme should be consistent and should reflect your brand. If your colors are all over the board, you will appear amateurish and your efforts may not achieve the results that you desire. You can look on sites like Colourlovers.com if you need some good ideas to get you going.

One of the most important things you can do during your e-mail marketing campaign is to set your goals and re-evaluate them as necessary. Make sure you know what you want to accomplish with your e-mail marketing campaign and be willing to change some of your practices as the industry, your business or your customer base changes. Always evaluate your “Subject” line as that is what your customer will see first. The goal is to get them to read your email.

Take every opportunity that comes up to be festive when you send out your emails. When there is a holiday try to tailor your emails to fit the occasion. Subscribers will be very appreciative of this and they will feel as if you are human and not a robot. That is a big key, don’t come off as a robot. Offering holiday discounts is another great idea that ties into the festive theme.

Write your message copy with benefits in mind, but not yours. Make sure your messages reflect the benefits that your content, products or services are offering your subscribers and readers. They want to know what is in it for them before they commit to the call to action, which is where your benefit happens.

When following up with your potential customers, you could follow them up by sending out an email that gives them a summary of an offer. Attach a line on the email that tells them to review this offer. The ending postscript could inform them that there are absolutely no hidden fees on the offer that you are providing them.

Email marketers would be wise from including pre-checked opt-in boxes within their emails. This will make you look untrustworthy to your readers as they may take this to be a little to forward. Also, when you let readers opt-in themselves, you create a better email list of customers that are actually interested in you and your business. Another big key to making sales.

Your email marketing goal to put simply is using the medium of email marketing to send captivating messages either to current customers or future customers for the sole purpose of marketing your service and/or product to them and making sales. Now that you know what to do, go make use of it in your own email marketing campaign!

Also get 50,000 Free Visitor’s to Your Website http://InternetMarketBiz.com

Tips for an Effective Internet Marketing Strategy

Internet marketing is a great way for businesses to promote themselves, their products and their services. Internet marketing is generally affordable and simple to implement. There are many different ways to use internet marketing. The tips in this article will describe the different ways to use internet marketing.

A great tip is to market your page as a club instead of a web site. This will allow people to become interested in what you have to offer and will significantly increase the amount of repeat customers you have. Create a message board or forum for your customers to interact with each other.

Offer bonuses to repeat visitors on your site. Repeat visitors will become regular visitors in order to get the bonuses. Give away a copy of your ebook if you have one to a certain number of visitors. Have your visitors sign up to be reminded to visit your site, and you can put them on your regular mailing list.

Offer your customers coupons or discounts to keep them coming back. Include a coupon or discount offer in the packaging when you mail your products to your customers. Attach coupons to your periodic email newsletters. If your customers have a coupon in hand, they are much more likely to return to buy something else so they do not let the coupon go to waste.

One of the keys to internet marketing success is keeping track of what is working and what could use improvement. You should set up tracking codes for your website, your advertising campaigns and the all of the links in your email marketing messages. By tracking your visitors at every stage of the buying process, you can tell at a glance, which promotions are the most profitable and which should be scrapped.

Unless you are marketing a well-known national brand, you may only have one chance to convert a site visitor into a paying customer. Check all links on your site to ensure that there are no breaks in navigation or info transmission; this is especially true if you are marketing luxury goods or high-dollar items.

Try sending out some promotional freebies in your customers’ packages. They should have your company and contact information located on them. Such items include things like bumper stickers, stickers, ball-caps, T-shirts, pencils, pens, and many other printable materials or even free digital products. You could even try placing sample products in there for customers to try.

Consider the use of articles for your internet marketing efforts. If you do not write yourself you can easily outsource the job. Adding articles to your website is one of the best ways to get customers to your website through the search engines. Search engine traffic will pay off big for your business.

Internet marketing is relatively simple and affordable to implement, easily allowing businesses to connect with customers and potential customers. There are different ways to use internet marketing and if you use the tips from this article then you can successfully promote your business with an internet marketing strategy.

Also get 50,000 Free Visitor’s to Your Website http://InternetMarketBiz.com

How to Validate Your Product Idea Before You Create the Product

Want to KNOW your product will be a hit BEFORE you make it? This is simple and easy to do. And it can save you a ton of time and frustration. Validating your next product idea is crucial if you want to be sure you’re going to have a winning product on your hands.

How to Validate Your Product Idea Before You Create the Product

Here’s how to do it…

Create a pre-launch page.

On the pre-launch page, give a short summary of your up and coming product. This is like a mini sales page with a headline, bullet points, benefits and a call to action. In this case, the call to action is a waiting list to buy the product when it comes out.

Once they join this list, send them to a second page that again talks about the product, but also offers them the chance to buy it right now at a lower price.

Structure it with your offer at the top. “Buy your copy now and get $20 off, plus this extra bonus.” Then reiterate the benefits of the product, and make the offer again at the bottom. Some people will likely click the buy button at the top without ever scrolling. Others will want to review what’s in the product before they buy.

Send the offer to your list. Gauge your response. Obviously, if you get no or very few takers, refund anyone who did order and move on to your next project. If you get a lot of people joining the waiting list and quite a few pre-ordering, you have a hit on your hands.

If the response rate is somewhere in between then you’ll have to make a judgement call. In this case, you might want to survey people who did join your list to see what they like about it, and survey those who didn’t join to see what they don’t like. Then make adjustments.

That’s it! By using this simple system you can accurately forecast whether you should go ahead and create that product you’ve got in mind, or move on to another, better project.

The Exact Emails Needed to Successfully Launch Your Next Top Selling Info Product

This is an email launch sequence that anyone can do and enjoy success with, whether you’re launching your next $10 product or $1,000 product.

The Exact Emails Needed to Successfully Launch Your Next Top Selling Info Product

I’m going to assume you have a list, whether it’s one you’ve warmed up for a while, or a new list compiled from affiliate promotions for your new launch. Either way, the email sequence will be the same.

And we’ll assume you’re selling some type of information product that teaches something. For our example, let’s say you’re selling a product on how to make great videos for marketing purposes.

Here is the sequence:

Email #1: The first lesson on making great videos that sell products. You’re going to be delivering 3 lessons in all on making great videos. But you’re only going to teach about 5 – 10% of what you know. This way they’ll have to buy the paid course to discover the other 90%.

Email #2: A survey question. In this case, ask them what their biggest challenge is in creating great videos that sell.

Email #3: The second lesson. Take the results from the survey question and find their 3 biggest challenges. Then tell them what to do to overcome these challenges, but not how to do it. You’re delivering great info, but not complete info.

Email #4: The third and final lesson in this series. Here is where you create open loops – Telling them more of what they need to do but not how to do it. Again, you’re giving great info but they will need more to get the results you get.

Email #5: This is your introduction to the paid course. Here is where you raise a good deal of curiosity of what’s inside the course. You build the anticipation and desire of the prospects. Think of it as teasing the customer and you’ll be on the right track.

Email #6: Details of the course. Time to lay out the bullet points and really hit the benefits in an impactful way. You’re getting them primed to hit the buy button when your course goes live. Let them know what the first buyers get that later buyers don’t get. And tell them when to be ready. For example, Monday, 9am EST.

Email #7: Let them know the product is live right NOW, and due to high interest the fast action bonuses will go quickly.

Email #8: Remind them that now is the time to order, before it’s too late. Show that the product is selling quickly and time is of the essence. Remind them of the deadline.

Email #9: At the last minute, extend the deadline by one or two days.

Email #10: Remind them that it all ends today. There will be no more extensions and no more opportunities to buy after the time you designate.

As you can see, this sequence is for a product you are going to sell for a short time and then pull from the market. If you want to continue selling the product, you still can by altering this sequence like this:

Emails 1-5 are the same.

Email #6: Tell them about the limited time bonus. Make this bonus BIG and VALUABLE.

Email #7: The product is live and the limited time bonus is only available for the next “x” days.

Email #8: Same as before, but with emphasis on the limited time bonus.

Email #9: Same as before.

Email #10: After your deadline they can still buy the product, but they will NOT get the bonus. No extensions and no exceptions.

If you don’t want to do a limited time bonus, you can also do introductory pricing to create urgency.

This is the exact email sequence used by 6 and 7 figure Internet Marketers to sell their products. And there’s a reason they continue to use it – it flat out works. Try it for yourself and see what results you get. You won’t be disappointed.

Internet Marketing Tips for Success…

The almighty Internet if used properly can play a fundamental role in your online business and business strategy. Because more and more people are connected to the Internet at all times via smart phones and the likes so it is important to know how to reach them. This article will offer some advice on Internet marketing.

Use automated means to adjust your online business to customer demand. This means programming your web site to slightly lower the price of under performing items until the optimal price/demand point is reached. You can also send out a customer survey after each purchase and key certain parts of your business process to customer responses.

When it comes to fully leveraging Internet marketing techniques, the tenure of your site makes a difference. Consider the contract length when purchasing a domain name and focus on keeping the domain name for as long a period of time as the site is viable. A tenured site has more credibility than a new site, plus historical information posted gives visitors a sense of your purpose.

On the contact page of your internet business, make sure that your phone number is in a prominent place and at a minimum your email address. More often than not, if a customer has questions about your service, he/she would rather call and speak to a live person to get an immediate answer. Instead of filling out an online form and waiting for an answer. I personally don’t mind the form lol.

Get good content for your website. Content is what people come to your site for in the first place. Offer them something relevant to their wants and needs that benefits them. Before trying to sell your product or service, give your site visitors something that will make them want to stay around.

You should always put a picture of yourself on your website because people usually want to see the face of the person they are handing over their money to. It will give them a feeling of trust and a slightly higher since of security since you are not just hiding behind a name.

Offer free shipping to your customers if you have a physical product. One of the biggest deterrent to online shopping is shipping fees. If you cannot afford free shipping, charge other businesses to include their ads in your packages or offer free shipping only to customers who spend a certain amount of money on your products.

To create a quality newsletter, you need to write educational content. Your goal is to provide interesting information to your audience. Mention your products into your educational content, write informative texts about the products themselves, or explain how your product can have an educational use. Remember that people subscribed to your newsletter to learn something.

Submit your site to search engines to make your Internet marketing campaign more successful. You definitely want your customers to be able to find you when they search online, so this is a valuable step to take. Do not limit yourself to just the larger search engines, however. Find smaller niche directories to submit to, as well. This will funnel customers who are looking for exactly what you offer.

The Internet is not the newest tool in the shed but it is very powerful in advancing your online business. Using different Internet marketing strategies can turn themselves into a wealthy business in a very short amount of time. Having read this article you now should know a couple of tips yourself for Internet marketing. So what are you waiting for, get marketing!

Also get 50,000 Free Visitor’s to Your Website http://InternetMarketBiz.com

Excellent Email Marketing Advice

There are few businesses that wouldn’t benefit from an effective email campaign. The key to an efficient email marketing campaign is to reach out to the right people and offer then things that they want. The information in this article will help you do just that by giving you advice and tips to make the most of your email marketing.

Write good content in your emails. Do not copy something, whether from another site or your own, directly into your email. Emails are not like web pages; they must be short and concise to hold your reader’s attention. That said, the content must be well-written, grammatically correct and free of spelling errors.

Keep your message clear and concise. A person’s time is valuable, so do not waste it with a wordy and meandering email. Try to get your message across in as few paragraphs as possible, and utilize line breaks between paragraphs to keep it easy to read. One helpful way to eliminate excess from your message is to write out everything, and edit it down until it is half of its original length.

Make sure your email campaign matches your brand. Use the same logos, fonts, colors as well as a similar messaging style to what your readers could find on your website. This helps the receivers of your email feel comfortable with the content and makes them more likely to open it.

If you are looking for a good email marketing tip, you may want to consider sending out HTML emails rather than simply text emails. Text emails are easily forgettable and generally boring to look at while html emails can make eye catching, impressive designs that readers are much more likely to remember.

Be sure and set up any designs or graphics you use in your emails “above the fold” whenever you send them out. This means that your graphics and designs should be view able from any preview pane or on the first page of the email (without having to scroll down). This will make your email look more attractive and be more effective.

You could try following up to your potential prospects by sending a follow-up email to them that includes a free e-book. Attach a suggestion onto your email that tells them to request it now. The ending of the email could claim to order it by clicking on the link given below.

Pay attention to the words and phrases that get the most attention in your industry. This means knowing who your audience is and what they’re looking for. Consumer products sell best when advertised through words such as “new”, while informational products sell better when combined with words like “advice”. Always be sure you know what your audience is looking for and word your copy accordingly.

As previously noted above, there are few businesses that wouldn’t benefit from the use of an effective email marketing campaign. The information and advice from the article above will help you craft and launch a marketing campaign that will offer your loyal customers what they want and to bring potential customers to your business.

Also get 50,000 Free Visitor’s to Your Website http://InternetMarketBiz.com

21 Brilliant Ideas for Your Next Blog Post

Stuck for ideas on what to write in your next blog post, article or email? I’ve made a list of what readers want most to see from you. In fact, this is exactly the content that people crave, so get ready to make your next content a smash hit with your audience.

21 Brilliant Ideas for Your Next Blog Post

Your readers want content that:

– Reminds them that they matter
– Reminds them that they are one of a kind
– Tells a story
– Takes them on a journey
– Surprises them
– Shows them that dreams can come true
– Has unexpected twists and unforeseeable turns
– Reveals awesome secrets
– Shows little Davids beating big Goliaths
– Confirms their thoughts and beliefs
– Challenges their assumptions in a respectful manner
– Gives a fresh point of view
– Takes a stand
– Reminds them that life is short – really short
– Gives them faith to believe in something BIG
– Reminds them to get back to the “basics”
– Makes them smile and laugh
– Makes them cry
– Educates while entertaining
– Inspires them to take action
– Encourages them to never, ever give up

This is the sort of content your readers never get tired of and always have time to read. If it’s really good, they remember it long after they’ve read it. And even if it’s only somewhat good, if it meets any of the above criteria, they are very likely to share it with others.

In other words, this is the kind of content that has the power to inspire, influence and move your readers to ACTION.

10 Marketing Mistakes Revealed!

I’ve been in the home business and online marketing industry for nearly 20 years. These are 10 of the most common marketing mistakes I hear or see most often from both Newbies but also from people who assure me they know what they are doing. Here’s the critical mistakes to avoid and what you should be doing instead to maximize your results.

Marketing Mistake #1

You send all your traffic to your primary website. Most people involved in online marketing or affiliate marketing, are selling more than one product or service. By all means, list all your products and services on your site, but don’t rely on your website for lead generation. Your website can be too busy and too big to funnel your buyers into the section or item they are looking for. Fussy, large, poorly organized websites can cost you leads and sales.

What you should do.

You should send all your traffic to landing pages NOT to your website. Ideally you should have one landing page for each product or service you offer. This way you can target specific markets and cater your copy and offers to that population. Landing pages are clean lead-generating machines. Effective landing pages start with a compelling attention-getting headline, then drive home the benefits of what you offer, point by point. Landing pages that get results always have an OFFER to generate an action by the reader – in most cases this action is either to get a contact form completed, or an instant sale. Every person who lands on your landing page (squeeze page) is a highly valued prospect.

Marketing Mistake #2

You focus only on lead generation and not list building. Newcomers to online marketing, and even seasoned marketers often make the mistake of posting static information on a website or a landing page. They fail to do the most important task of all. That task is to include an opt-in form on your landing page that encourages the prospect to sign up for your newsletter, or your email updates, or your special promotions email.

What you should do.

Every landing page you create should include OPTIN boxes so respondents can check off interest in other services you offer including your newsletter, special promotions, or related products and services. Every successful marketer knows that the key to sales now, today, and the future is based on a solid mailing list. The best way to generate your own email marketing list is to encourage people to agree (opt-in) to receive your email. This can be made easy for prospects by having check boxes on the lead form included on your landing page. They simply check off what they would like to receive additional information about. Mail order companies have known the power of a good mailing list for years, now online marketers need to understand this too.

Marketing Mistake #3

You tell not sell. You ramble on with details and jargon that bores your prospect to tears. You don’t offer the exciting benefits of what your product or service offers – what it will do for them to make their life better, or solve or eliminate a problem. Prospects stop reading long before they get anywhere near becoming a lead or a buyer.

What you should do.

Use sales-generating copy tells the prospect the BENEFITS of what you offer. Include a special offers that motivates a response! Stop boring people by TELLING the minutiae of what they are buying and start SELLING them on why they must get your incredible product TODAY. Sell all the benefits of what you offer, make an offer to get it today, then limit that offer so they understand they will miss out if they don’t act now – right now! Every statement in your copy should be moving towards the sale. You get this, this and this too but you must act now! Punchy copy that is laden with value and excitement gets a response. Your marketing copy must speak directly to the needs of the reader, they want to know what is in it for them. Your only need as the marketer is to get the point across that your offer is outstanding and must be responded to right now.

Marketing Mistake #4

You are trying to BUY success. Many inexperienced marketers will buy the services of an SEO company in an attempt to artificially force their website to the first page of Google and other search engine sites. I hope you have a money tree because you are going to need one. You’ll be out of money before you know it with no sales to show for it.

What you should do.

Learn how to do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) yourself. If you don’t you will always find people with their hand out ready to take your money, and your return for this kind of service will be minimal. Here’s why. SEO is not that hard, you can easily learn how to do this yourself if you are willing to learn, give it time and are very patient. There are TONS of free courses, free ebooks, low cost software and training programs that teach you how to increase your website ranking. At least first give it a try yourself, save yourself a lot of money, learn for the sake of long term growth of your online business. See Marketing Mistake # 5 for more on this.

Marketing Mistake #5

You rely on automation or short cuts to fast-track your marketing. You’ve bought software or services that allow you to: – Spin articles – Mass blast ads – Generate mass link submissions – Blast messages out to Twitter and other social media sites – Mass product fake content pages

Guess what? The folks at Google and Bing are smart cookies. Every day they tighten their algorithms a little bit more to decrease or eliminate the search returns generated by automated programs. The result: one day you are on the first page and the top 10 search returns, the next day your site is dropped for no reason and no recourse for the unfortunate site owner. I don’t have to tell you that this can cost you a LOT of money. The search engine sites don’t have to tell you why your listing disappeared, they change how they rank sites all the time. As soon as there is an obvious pattern, or sometimes just a hint of artificial attempts to jimmy your rankings from automated software, look out!

What you should do.

Forget about automation, it may work now, you may get away with it for the short term but in the long term, it won’t. Google themselves will tell you the best way to get high ranking is with fresh, natural content posted frequently. Yup. That takes time, sorry folks, no way around that but it is time well spent. Stop thinking you have to get rich over night, start thinking of your online business as a REAL business, not a hobby. A legitimate business takes time to build, consistent effort and some learning along the way. Read, learn, download ebooks on the topic, take a Bootcamp training course such as the one offered at Worldprofit, and work on building your web footprint one day at a time. Every had a tap dripping into your bathtub. It doesn’t take long till the tub fills then starts to overflow. Use the FREE and plentiful tools available on the web to learn and understand how to increase your ranking. You can get started right now! Set time aside as you learn and do a little every day. Create social media profiles, create blogs, post an ad, build a WordPress site (the SEO is built in already), write an article, comment on an article, be a guest blogger, tweet, Facebook, LinkedIn.

Marketing Mistake # 6

You don’t track your advertising results. No clicks on your ads means no intelligence on which ads are working at which places. You are marketing with a blindfold.

What you should do.

The beauty of online advertising is that when you post an ad you can check to see if you get hits. This is smart! The only way of knowing if your ads are working, if your time was well spent, or your advertising dollars were well spent is to know if you get clicks on your ads. Tracking your ads and the response allows you to tweak your ad copy, better your offer, identify both good and poor advertising sources. Most online advertising sites provide you with a Member area where you can login to check your statistical data on your advertising response.

Marketing Mistake # 7

Buying ads on Google and Bing without knowing what you are doing. Newcomers to online marketing do this all the time. They put up a website then buy ads at Google. Google loves you for this but you won’t fall in love with the cost.

What you should do

Research key words in your industry so you know what people are using to find businesses, products or services that you offer. How do you do that? Easy. Google has a key words tools within their Webmaster Tools to help you with your ad campaigns. It’s free whether you advertise with them or not, and a great way to get started learning about key works so you can use this information in your marketing.

Marketing Mistake # 8

Not promoting consistently. You are short on time, and short on money, so you post infrequently. You don’t vary your offer, your products, your ad copy.

What you should do.

Successful marketers know that promotion is something you must do every day, and if not every day as often as you can. People short on time make the grave error of buying large quantity mailings to massive amounts of people in one shot, instead of doing small amounts of promotion to target markets on a continual consistent basis. Do you ever notice that big companies NEVER stop marketing? They are always in your face. What do they know that you don’t know? The consumer has a very short attention span and if you are not in their face they quickly forget about you. My colleague Dr. Jeffrey Lant impressed on me the 7 time rule of marketing. The idea of this is that people have to see an offer, or an ad as much as 7 times before they do anything. Ever notice that when you watch the morning news while getting ready for work, that the same McDonald’s commercial plays over and over again! Why? They know you are watching the news getting ready for work and want you to stop in for a breakfast sandwich. Repetition in marketing is key and give the competition out there for various offers, it’s important that your message be seen. Post your ads often. You are NEVER done promoting. As an online marketer your job is simple. Promote often, promote consistently. This leads into our next critical mistake.

Marketing Mistake # 9

Only advertising at a few places and not constantly looking for new advertising sources.

What you should do.

New marketers tend to find one or two places to advertise then only advertise there. The web is filled with great places to advertise. You must try to continually expand your reach, tap into new markets, target new customers. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket and rely exclusively on single sources or you will be cutting off your profit potential. Look into all kinds of different types of advertising including pay per click, login ads, banner ads, safelists, traffic exchanges, ad swaps, classified ads, joint ventures. Avoid vendors that offer extremely large lists, or leads for a ridiculously low cost, chances are good they will be fake or computer generated.

Marketing Mistake # 10

Underestimating how much marketing focus is required to drive your business.

What you should do.

Understand that marketing is and should be 90% of how you spend your time in building your online business. This one thing alone dooms so many Newbies to failure, they don’t spend enough time on marketing in order to get results. I hear people say ‘this product is so good it will sell itself”. That has got to be one of the worst errors in thinking I have heard when it comes to making money. You’ve got your products or services you want to sell, now focus on promotion. When, where, and how. Then stick to it. I’ve had people tell me they are spending 12 hours a day promoting a product and not getting results. I tell each and everyone of them this. “If that’s actually true, you are doing something terribly wrong.” If this is you then go back and read over these common marketing mistakes. You are making one or more and this is sabotaging your own success. Sometimes you just need to step away, take a breather, and review what you are doing. You may think you are working hard but you aren’t focusing on what will get you results. Something is perhaps distracting you, something is eating up your time, something you are doing is not what you should be doing. One person who told me they were spending dozens of hours a day with no result, was actually spending most of their time blogging and Facebooking. When they evaluated what they were actually doing they then saw that what felt like work was really just time wasted in front of a computer. The bottom line is this, reassess but never never give up.

Summary: There is so much money to be made online it’s mind-boggling. It’s a type of money making that is not what most people are familiar, it’s a steep learning curve for many but it’s worth the time to learn. There’s unlimited choices of products and services to sell. You can build an online business for very little cost but treat it seriously. Be realistic about what you can earn and put in the necessary time to learn and understand what you are doing. Affiliate marketing is a huge growth industry now with no signs of slowing.

About the Author

Sandi Hunter is the President of Worldprofit, Inc., a company providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today, click on one of the links below…

Republished with author’s permission.http://InternetMarketBiz.com.

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How to Build Your Site like a Supermarket

You might be thinking, “Why would I want my website to be like a grocery store? I don’t sell meats and produce, I sell information and opportunity.” Good question. But if you’re a fan of all things marketing, this is one article you do not want to miss.

How to Build Your Site like a Supermarket

Case in point: Did you know that nothing is left to chance in a supermarket? Everything in a grocery store is orchestrated to increase sales. In the same way, we want to be 100% intentional about how we guide people to the right place on our websites so they do what we want them to do (subscribe, buy, etc.)

Yes, it’s manipulative. But it comes down to a choice – are you going to be smart about your website, or are you going to leave it to chance and hope for the best? Being smart builds a real business, while hoping you accidentally get it right is a hobby. BIG difference.

Here’s a prime supermarket lesson we can use on our websites: When one very successful store cut their product line by 40% their sales went up 20%. Why is this? Because before people had too many choices, resulting in confusion and loss of sales. Reduce the choices and you reduce the confusion. This is why UK supermarket giant Tesco cut their range of products by 30% to simplify the experience for shoppers. After all, who needs 98 different extra virgin olive oils?

If you have too many products, pull the ones that aren’t selling well and focus just on your best sellers. This will benefit you in that you’re more focused on promoting your best sellers only. And it will benefit your customers because it’ll be easier for them to make a buying decision.

Here’s another juicy marketing morsel: When a four-foot cardboard cutout of a glass of beer was placed at either end of the beer shelves, sales increased 23% overnight. Crazy, right? The big beer glasses acted as sign posts, directing customers towards purchasing beer.

So how can you guide people on your website into making purchases? Good question. Give them a clear path from start to finish – a path they cannot easily deviate from. Guide them. Make it clear what their choice should be (to buy, versus to leave without buying.) Make it as simple as seeing a signpost and making the appropriate turn to get to the destination.

And speaking of making things easy – for years supermarkets hid things like bread and milk at the back of the store, with the theory this would increase sales. After all, if you make people walk past all the other items, they’re bound to buy some, right?

It turns out that was a bad theory. Instead of increasing sales, it had the long term effect of making people mad enough to not return to the store. Ouch. Now they know that by placing essentials at the front of the store, they are more likely to get repeat business from the goodwill they have built.

Again, it’s all about making the shopping experience easy for the customer. To get more ideas about how to make your website more like a supermarket, go here:

www.convinceandconvert.com/customer-experience/how-to-build-your-website/

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