Lesson Objective:
Today you will:
· Make at least 3 forum / discussion board postings in response to other people’s
questions
· “Run your numbers” so far
· Catch up on any items you’ve overlooked or put off until now
Skills Needed:
· Basic Word Processing
· Basic Surfing
Part 1 – Make at least 3 forum / discussion board postings
Yesterday you picked out 10 to 30 active discussion boards or forums and today you are
going to post answers to people’s questions.
Today you will post at least three responses to demonstrate your knowledge as “the
expert” and you will do it in such a way that it will entice other people to come to your
site as a result.
Whenever you're answering a question you should use a compelling title for your post to
pull readers into your posting.
Most other posters will simply reply to the post so the original post's title appears as "Re:
Original Title" – not very exciting :-(
Take a look at a few examples and see which one of the posts you would read if you were
in a hurry:
· Ad Tracking Software
Mike xxxx - Saturday, 14 October 2003, at 5:41 p.m.
o Here's A Great Way...
Yanik Silver - Tuesday, 17 October 2003, at 9:14 p.m.
· What ONE book would you recommend
Donna - Friday, 20 October 2003, at 3:06 p.m.
o I've Read This One 7 Times...
Yanik Silver - Saturday, 21 October 2003, at 8:35 p.m.
$ Re: I've Read This One 7 Times...
Don - Sunday, 22 October 2003, at 4:56 p.m.
o Re: What ONE book would you recommend
Willie xxxx - Saturday, 21 October 2003, at 6:52 a.m.
o Re: What ONE book would you recommend
Tom xxxx - Friday, 20 October 2003, at 11:45 p.m.
Important Dos and Don’ts To Posting
I believe there are a few points you should keep in mind:
1. Obviously you shouldn’t ‘spam’ a board with your blatant advertisement. You
can’t just post to the board announcing your new product (unless you have
explicit permission from the board owner).
2. Don’t put your URL unless you’ve got something to contribute. I always like to
contribute something before I list my link. I won’t simply say something like “I
agree” and then give people my link. I don’t think that makes you look very good
to visitors of the board.
3. Also, whenever I post a question I will not put my link because that really isn’t a
contribution I’m making.
Using Your ‘Sig’ File
On some boards they don’t have an automatic way to add your URL or text link – in that
case you simply add your ‘sig’ file (or signature) at the bottom.
This is a simple way of promoting yourself ethically on the web. A sig file is just 4 or 5
lines that appears after your name on every email message you send out. This is VERY
similar to your resource box at the end of your ezine article.
Part 2 – Understanding and Analyzing your “critical numbers”
Your website stats are also referred to as your “critical numbers”.
Here’s why your stats are so important:
The Hidden Fortune in Your Website “Stats”
Most people never bother to look at the statistics program that comes with virtually every
website because few realize the gold mine of information it contains.
Your website statistics hold a key for understanding your traffic, improving sales and
increasing the overall effectiveness of your online selling.
Whether you realize it or not, your website has “critical numbers” that enable you to
measure the overall success of your Internet presence.
Any serious website operator should understand the four most important numbers:
· Hits
· Unique, Targeted Visitors
· Leads
· Sales
Hits - Hits are typically page views, whether by the same or different visitors, and they
indicate overall activity on the site.
A lot of hits shows activity (usually a good thing), but doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve
had a high number of actual visitors.
Search engine “spiders” snooping your pages and website surfers hitting their back
buttons also increase the hit count.
Research has shown that, depending on the size of your site, the ratio of hits to visitors
will range anywhere from 2 to 1 all the way up to 12 to 1.
Unique, Targeted Visitors - people surfing to your site who have not been there before
within a certain period of time.
Depending on the statistics program you use, a unique visitor may be someone who
hasn’t been to your site in a day or a week, while in other programs a visitor remains
unique until you reset the stats.
You must understand how your stats program classifies unique visitors so you don’t
mistakenly believe your site is getting 30 unique visitors a day only to find out it is the
same 30 people coming back day after day!
A “targeted” visitor means that the visitor has an interest in what you are selling or
promoting. This interest is usually demonstrated by keyword searches at a search engine
or by clicking targeted advertisements in ezines.
It does you no good to attract general traffic to your site – you want unique, targeted
visitors with a high level of interest your product or service.
Leads - a valid email address usually makes the best “lead” since people can and do give
fake names and phone numbers online.
If someone won’t give you a valid email address, chances are they won’t give you their
credit card to make a purchase either.
Email leads enable you to measure interest and to follow up with prospects.
Once you know the number of unique visitors to your site, you can calculate the
percentage of leads you develop and concentrate on ways to improve your sales
conversion by testing different offers and headlines.
Sales - the number of sales as compared to unique visitors represents your most critical
statistic because it tells you whether or not you’ve made a profit.
For every hundred visitors to your site, how many sales do you make and how much
money do you net?
Most failed dot-com’s in the late 1990’s never bothered to answer this simple question.
Selling on the web is a “numbers game” – learn how to make the numbers work for you!
Any potential JV partner who knows what they’re doing is going to want to know your
“numbers” so they can reasonably figure out how much money they’ll make if they work
with you.
Knowing your numbers ahead of time will make you look much more professional!
I keep track of my critical numbers every single day in a basic spreadsheet… that way I
can see how I’m doing day to day at a glance.
So right now go to your stats and figure out the following:
(If you need to, consult the help file for your stats or email your ISP if you have any
trouble reading your stats and understanding exactly what they mean.)
How many “hits” have you had in the last week?
Look in your stats program to see exactly what are “hits”. Are they individual
page views or something else?
This total number of “hits” helps you gauge overall activity on your site.
How many leads have you developed with your autoresponder in the last week?
Besides sales, adding targeted people to build your mailing list is the best thing
you can do online!
How many unique visitors have you had in the last week?
Let’s say for example you had 100 unique visitors in the last week.
How many sales did you make in the last week?
Let’s say for example you made 3 sales and you net $23 on each sale after hard
costs of producing and delivering the product.
Divide your number of sales by your number of unique visitors and this will give
your “sales conversion rate”.
3 sales / 100 unique visitors = 3% conversion rate
What this means is that for every 100 targeted visitors showing up to your site,
you sell 3 of them. A JV partner would be very interested in those types of
numbers!
Divide your net profits by the total number of unique visitors you’ve had in the
last week and this will give your “Visitor value”.
Let’s say your net profit on those three sales is $69 (3 sales x $23).
$69 net profit / 100 visitors = 69 cent visitor value.
What this means is that you can spend up to 69 cents to bring a targeted visitor to
your site and still make money.
Part 3 – Here’s what to do if your numbers are low
Since we’ve only been at this for a little over 2 weeks now and your Yahoo, Dmoz and
search engine listings haven’t even kicked in yet, your numbers probably aren’t very
high. However you could get numbers from your pay-per-click campaigns and some of
the others action items you’ve been doing.
Don’t get discouraged!
Our purpose today is more to get you used to looking at your “critical numbers” as it is to
actually start tracking results!
If your total number of visitors is low, here’s what you can do at this point:
· Increase your bid amounts at Overture.com and the other pay-per-click search
engines.
· Increase the total number of terms you’re bidding on with pay-per-click search
engines.
· Run another round of ezine ads (if the ones you placed on Day 15 have already
run)
If your total visitors seem fine, but your sales or your opt-in subscriber numbers are
low, here’s what you can do at this point:
Note: It’s best to run each of these changes in front of the same number of unique
visitors. Doing so allows you to compare your results and see what effect a specific
change has on your results.
Do NOT try all of these at the same time! Only make one change at a time to your sales
letter or you’ll never know what does and doesn’t work!
1. Test a different headline on your sales letter – you came up with 50 or more…
maybe it is time to try a different one.
2. Adjust your offer to include more benefits for the consumer. Do you focus on
their needs or is your sales letter all about you?
3. Add more bonuses. Sweeten the pot even further until no sane person could say
no.
4. Change your price up or down. Sometimes a different price point can get people
off the mark and make a purchase decision.
Summary of today’s assignments:
1. Post at least three responses to messages on active discussion boards.
2. Thoroughly analyze your “critical numbers” so you start getting in the habit of
looking at them daily.
3. Make adjustments to improve your “numbers” and your sales results.
Today’s Resources:
Forum Profits – This step-by-step guide will teach exactly how to bring in more traffic
and more subscribers using free forums (without getting flamed).
Showing posts with label google adsense. Show all posts
Showing posts with label google adsense. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Day 14 (Sunday) - Ezine Marketing
Lesson Objective:
To start researching ezines targeting your niche market, identify 50 you can submit
articles to and 5 ezines where you can run an advertisement.
Skills Needed:
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Word Processing
NOTE: To save as much time as possible you should buy an email merge product
such as Group Mail.
Today’s Lesson:
Today, we’re going to start researching ezines for free publicity (you’ll be submitting
articles to them in a few days) and for buying advertising.
Ezines are those email newsletters you get in your inbox. At last count, I heard there were
something like 100,000 of them on all different topics.
As you are beginning your research, I suggest starting a simple spreadsheet with fields
like this:
Ezine name, editor’s name, editor’s email, circulations, advertising cost, accept articles
(Yes or No), comments
Now, here are some places you start your search for ezines – you’ll find most of these
directories are grouped by categories. (Though the paid ones are more extensive and
would be my recommendation if you can afford it):
Ezine Directory List:
John Labovitz's Ezine List (this one is good but it has not been updated past March 2000)
Top Ezine Ads (this one is really good but it costs a few bucks)
Top Ezine Ads
Directory of Ezines (this one is also really good but it costs a few bucks)
Directory of Ezines
Ezine-Universe
eZINESearch
Best Ezines
Today’s Assignment:
1. Find 20 – 50 Ezines that accept articles. You may need to email some of the ezine
editors asking if they accept articles. The paid directories will give you this
invaluable information.
2. Find 5 potential ezines you’d like to advertise in. Contact the editors for their
requirements. (Once again the paid ezine directories usually give you this
information.)
Today’s Resources:
Ezine Directories
Top Ezine Ads
Directory of Ezines
These are 2 important ezine directories that I use whenever I am looking for editors that
accept ezine articles or places to advertise in.
Email Merge Programs:
You’ll need to get some kind of email merge software so you can submit articles to ezine
editors or you can do it all yourself manually (if you have more time than money).
Group Mail - Group-mail is a mail merge software that works very well. I use it
personally and I’ve heard good things about it. It has both a free and paid version.
“Budget Cruncher”!
Email merge programs
Go to www.Downloads.com and look for free versions or free trials
of email merge software. Try searching for “email merge” first.
One that I found (which may or may not still be there as you check
this) is called G-Lock Easy Mail 4.0 – it is free to try and lets you do email merge. Plus
other nice features.
Submitting to Ezines
Your option here is simply to submit to each ezine by hand – there’s no way around it.
Almost “Halfway Point”
Summary
Lesson Objective:
As we head into what is approximately the second “half” of the “33 Days” program, lets
catch up on any assignments that have been overlooked or not quite finished.
Skills Needed:
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Email
· Basic HTML
· Basic FTP
· Basic Word Processing
Part 1 – Review
Before we move into the area of “surfing for ideas” and catching up on any unfinished
tasks, let’s review what we’ve done so far and put it all into perspective.
I think you’ll agree that we’ve covered a lot of ground quickly and you should feel proud
of yourself for making it this far! Give yourself a pat on the back!
Days 1 - 3
· You came up with your initial list of keywords, picked our Yahoo and Dmoz
categories and chose a domain name.
· You physically “set up shop” and obtained the tools for conducting business
online.
· You started the process of building our site by deciding on the “look and feel”
and designing a template page.
Day 4 - 6
· You began to write your sales letter and brainstormed headlines.
· You wrote out sales copy.
· You pulled the whole sales letter together into a powerful sales tool.
Day 7
· You added “meta-tags” and posted our site to our web hosting account.
· You created a folder in your web browser called “Possible JV Partners”.
· You found a number of sites to potentially partner with later.
Day 8-9
· You created your autoresponder sequence and installed it on our website.
Day 10
· You started laying the groundwork for getting traffic to your site with pay-
per-click search engines.
· You also focused and refined your list of keywords.
Day 11
· You finalized your sales letter and wrote better titles and descriptions for your
pay-per-click search engine links.
Day 12
· You submitted your site to Yahoo, Dmoz and the major search engines.
Day 13
· You identified 50 ezines to submit articles and 5 ezines to buy advertising.
You also obtained an email merge product such as Mail King.
And here we are on Day 14… see how much you have accomplished!
You should feel really good right now that you have come so far so fast.
Let’s keep the momentum going!
Part 2 – Surf for Ideas
“Surfing for ideas” is a technique I got from Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the Guerrilla
Marketing series of books.
A simple yet powerful technique, surfing for ideas means you start out in the search
engines, ezines, links pages, classified ads or anywhere else searching for your most
popular keyword phrases and click on other people’s sites.
Your purpose is to stay on top of what other people are doing online so you don’t miss
any trends on generating traffic, converting site visitors to leads, sales and more.
When you surf for ideas you should:
· Look for new and exciting ways other site owners are using technology –
especially readily available technology such as auto-responders, popup
windows and simple java scripts.
· Look for offers that get you excited and could get your customers excited too
– then sign up for their affiliate program. These items usually make for
excellent endorsed mailings to your list.
· Watch for offers you could use to “up-sell” to your customers right at the
point of purchase.
· See who your competitors link to – and who links to them! This can open a
whole new world for you in terms of finding potential joint venture partners
and uncovering new sources of targeted traffic to your site.
· Anywhere you see a competitor with a productive link, you should try to get a
link too – especially if you can get the link for free or on a per-sale basis.
· Open your mind to how other people are doing things and ask yourself how
what you see could help you improve your site and business.
Immediately implement any worthwhile ideas you pick up.
DO NOT WAIT! ACT on what you see immediately!
Part 3 – Catch Up
The last assignment for today is to look back over the last couple of weeks and fill in any
gaps in your activities.
Do you need to write something?
Do you need to tweak something?
Do you need to totally re-do something?
Today is the day to catch up so you can start fresh tomorrow.
Summary of “Halfway Point” Assignments:
1. “Surf for ideas”
2. Implement what you learn from your idea surfing session.
3. Catch up on any tasks or items you may not have finished yet.
Today’s Resources:
See the Resource Article “3 Secrets to ‘Striking it Rich’ in Cyberspace” on
the next page.
3 Secrets to “Striking it Rich” in Cyberspace
In the few seconds it takes you to read this sentence, another domain name gets registered at
www.NetworkSolutions.com, the Internet’s oldest and largest domain name registrar.
Everyone from industrial giants to corner flower shops currently wants to stake a profitable
claim in cyberspace.
The lure of low startup costs compared to brick-and-mortar operations and the promise of
high rewards draws an ever-swelling crowd of merchants to the online marketplace.
People from all over the country ask me what it takes to succeed in the e-commerce world
once they’ve completed the basic steps for getting online.
The following three keys virtually guarantee success for any online enterprise.
The First Key:
A Quality product or service with highly evident and readily understood benefits for
consumers.
If your product or service does not represent the highest quality and value possible, and if
consumers don’t understand exactly why they should buy from you, the speed of the Internet
will just expose your shortcomings to the marketplace that much quicker.
In the offline world a product's benefits, not the features, cause consumers to make buying
decisions.
A man doesn't buy a car with a 5-liter engine because of the horsepower, he buys it for the
feeling of supremacy and control he thinks it will give him.
Kids don't want a fast computer for the computing power in doing homework, they want to
play the latest games.
The Internet magnifies this "what's in it for me" benefits-driven evaluation by consumers.
Products or services presented with readily understood, self-serving benefits for consumers
sell best online (and off).
The Second Key:
An excellent website that loads fast, provides pertinent information to targeted consumers,
and allows them to make online purchases quickly and securely.
Your website should:
· Load fast by making conservative use of graphics. (Go to yahoo.com for an excellent
example of a site that uses very few graphics.)
· Provide exactly the information your potential customers want and need.
· Make it extremely easy for surfers to navigate your site and find exactly what they
want.
· Look good on both the Netscape and Internet Explorer web browsers at various
screen resolutions (640x480, 800x600, etc.).
The Third Key:
Consistent, targeted website traffic by consumers capable of buying your product or
service.
Imagine buying a 50-foot billboard and, instead of putting it out by the highway, you hid it in
your basement. Nobody would see it!
The same thing happens if you don’t actively and continuously promote your website to
attract visitors.
With its incredible speed and communications power, the Internet acts as a magnifying glass
for any organization’s strengths and weaknesses.
E-commerce, e-mail, and a website by themselves -- without intelligent input from
you -- won't do the job of marketing, selling, and customer service for any company.
When used properly, however, they will help every organization perform all of those
business functions better, faster, and less expensively with the real and tangible result of
“striking it rich” in cyberspace!
Source: www.thenetreporter.com
To start researching ezines targeting your niche market, identify 50 you can submit
articles to and 5 ezines where you can run an advertisement.
Skills Needed:
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Word Processing
NOTE: To save as much time as possible you should buy an email merge product
such as Group Mail.
Today’s Lesson:
Today, we’re going to start researching ezines for free publicity (you’ll be submitting
articles to them in a few days) and for buying advertising.
Ezines are those email newsletters you get in your inbox. At last count, I heard there were
something like 100,000 of them on all different topics.
As you are beginning your research, I suggest starting a simple spreadsheet with fields
like this:
Ezine name, editor’s name, editor’s email, circulations, advertising cost, accept articles
(Yes or No), comments
Now, here are some places you start your search for ezines – you’ll find most of these
directories are grouped by categories. (Though the paid ones are more extensive and
would be my recommendation if you can afford it):
Ezine Directory List:
John Labovitz's Ezine List (this one is good but it has not been updated past March 2000)
Top Ezine Ads (this one is really good but it costs a few bucks)
Top Ezine Ads
Directory of Ezines (this one is also really good but it costs a few bucks)
Directory of Ezines
Ezine-Universe
eZINESearch
Best Ezines
Today’s Assignment:
1. Find 20 – 50 Ezines that accept articles. You may need to email some of the ezine
editors asking if they accept articles. The paid directories will give you this
invaluable information.
2. Find 5 potential ezines you’d like to advertise in. Contact the editors for their
requirements. (Once again the paid ezine directories usually give you this
information.)
Today’s Resources:
Ezine Directories
Top Ezine Ads
Directory of Ezines
These are 2 important ezine directories that I use whenever I am looking for editors that
accept ezine articles or places to advertise in.
Email Merge Programs:
You’ll need to get some kind of email merge software so you can submit articles to ezine
editors or you can do it all yourself manually (if you have more time than money).
Group Mail - Group-mail is a mail merge software that works very well. I use it
personally and I’ve heard good things about it. It has both a free and paid version.
“Budget Cruncher”!
Email merge programs
Go to www.Downloads.com and look for free versions or free trials
of email merge software. Try searching for “email merge” first.
One that I found (which may or may not still be there as you check
this) is called G-Lock Easy Mail 4.0 – it is free to try and lets you do email merge. Plus
other nice features.
Submitting to Ezines
Your option here is simply to submit to each ezine by hand – there’s no way around it.
Almost “Halfway Point”
Summary
Lesson Objective:
As we head into what is approximately the second “half” of the “33 Days” program, lets
catch up on any assignments that have been overlooked or not quite finished.
Skills Needed:
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Email
· Basic HTML
· Basic FTP
· Basic Word Processing
Part 1 – Review
Before we move into the area of “surfing for ideas” and catching up on any unfinished
tasks, let’s review what we’ve done so far and put it all into perspective.
I think you’ll agree that we’ve covered a lot of ground quickly and you should feel proud
of yourself for making it this far! Give yourself a pat on the back!
Days 1 - 3
· You came up with your initial list of keywords, picked our Yahoo and Dmoz
categories and chose a domain name.
· You physically “set up shop” and obtained the tools for conducting business
online.
· You started the process of building our site by deciding on the “look and feel”
and designing a template page.
Day 4 - 6
· You began to write your sales letter and brainstormed headlines.
· You wrote out sales copy.
· You pulled the whole sales letter together into a powerful sales tool.
Day 7
· You added “meta-tags” and posted our site to our web hosting account.
· You created a folder in your web browser called “Possible JV Partners”.
· You found a number of sites to potentially partner with later.
Day 8-9
· You created your autoresponder sequence and installed it on our website.
Day 10
· You started laying the groundwork for getting traffic to your site with pay-
per-click search engines.
· You also focused and refined your list of keywords.
Day 11
· You finalized your sales letter and wrote better titles and descriptions for your
pay-per-click search engine links.
Day 12
· You submitted your site to Yahoo, Dmoz and the major search engines.
Day 13
· You identified 50 ezines to submit articles and 5 ezines to buy advertising.
You also obtained an email merge product such as Mail King.
And here we are on Day 14… see how much you have accomplished!
You should feel really good right now that you have come so far so fast.
Let’s keep the momentum going!
Part 2 – Surf for Ideas
“Surfing for ideas” is a technique I got from Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the Guerrilla
Marketing series of books.
A simple yet powerful technique, surfing for ideas means you start out in the search
engines, ezines, links pages, classified ads or anywhere else searching for your most
popular keyword phrases and click on other people’s sites.
Your purpose is to stay on top of what other people are doing online so you don’t miss
any trends on generating traffic, converting site visitors to leads, sales and more.
When you surf for ideas you should:
· Look for new and exciting ways other site owners are using technology –
especially readily available technology such as auto-responders, popup
windows and simple java scripts.
· Look for offers that get you excited and could get your customers excited too
– then sign up for their affiliate program. These items usually make for
excellent endorsed mailings to your list.
· Watch for offers you could use to “up-sell” to your customers right at the
point of purchase.
· See who your competitors link to – and who links to them! This can open a
whole new world for you in terms of finding potential joint venture partners
and uncovering new sources of targeted traffic to your site.
· Anywhere you see a competitor with a productive link, you should try to get a
link too – especially if you can get the link for free or on a per-sale basis.
· Open your mind to how other people are doing things and ask yourself how
what you see could help you improve your site and business.
Immediately implement any worthwhile ideas you pick up.
DO NOT WAIT! ACT on what you see immediately!
Part 3 – Catch Up
The last assignment for today is to look back over the last couple of weeks and fill in any
gaps in your activities.
Do you need to write something?
Do you need to tweak something?
Do you need to totally re-do something?
Today is the day to catch up so you can start fresh tomorrow.
Summary of “Halfway Point” Assignments:
1. “Surf for ideas”
2. Implement what you learn from your idea surfing session.
3. Catch up on any tasks or items you may not have finished yet.
Today’s Resources:
See the Resource Article “3 Secrets to ‘Striking it Rich’ in Cyberspace” on
the next page.
3 Secrets to “Striking it Rich” in Cyberspace
In the few seconds it takes you to read this sentence, another domain name gets registered at
www.NetworkSolutions.com, the Internet’s oldest and largest domain name registrar.
Everyone from industrial giants to corner flower shops currently wants to stake a profitable
claim in cyberspace.
The lure of low startup costs compared to brick-and-mortar operations and the promise of
high rewards draws an ever-swelling crowd of merchants to the online marketplace.
People from all over the country ask me what it takes to succeed in the e-commerce world
once they’ve completed the basic steps for getting online.
The following three keys virtually guarantee success for any online enterprise.
The First Key:
A Quality product or service with highly evident and readily understood benefits for
consumers.
If your product or service does not represent the highest quality and value possible, and if
consumers don’t understand exactly why they should buy from you, the speed of the Internet
will just expose your shortcomings to the marketplace that much quicker.
In the offline world a product's benefits, not the features, cause consumers to make buying
decisions.
A man doesn't buy a car with a 5-liter engine because of the horsepower, he buys it for the
feeling of supremacy and control he thinks it will give him.
Kids don't want a fast computer for the computing power in doing homework, they want to
play the latest games.
The Internet magnifies this "what's in it for me" benefits-driven evaluation by consumers.
Products or services presented with readily understood, self-serving benefits for consumers
sell best online (and off).
The Second Key:
An excellent website that loads fast, provides pertinent information to targeted consumers,
and allows them to make online purchases quickly and securely.
Your website should:
· Load fast by making conservative use of graphics. (Go to yahoo.com for an excellent
example of a site that uses very few graphics.)
· Provide exactly the information your potential customers want and need.
· Make it extremely easy for surfers to navigate your site and find exactly what they
want.
· Look good on both the Netscape and Internet Explorer web browsers at various
screen resolutions (640x480, 800x600, etc.).
The Third Key:
Consistent, targeted website traffic by consumers capable of buying your product or
service.
Imagine buying a 50-foot billboard and, instead of putting it out by the highway, you hid it in
your basement. Nobody would see it!
The same thing happens if you don’t actively and continuously promote your website to
attract visitors.
With its incredible speed and communications power, the Internet acts as a magnifying glass
for any organization’s strengths and weaknesses.
E-commerce, e-mail, and a website by themselves -- without intelligent input from
you -- won't do the job of marketing, selling, and customer service for any company.
When used properly, however, they will help every organization perform all of those
business functions better, faster, and less expensively with the real and tangible result of
“striking it rich” in cyberspace!
Source: www.thenetreporter.com
Day 9 (Tuesday) - Write your autoresponder sequence and install it on your site
Lesson Objective:
To write up your autoresponder messages and install them in your autoresponder.
Skills Needed:
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Word Processing
Today’s Lesson:
Welcome to Day 9 – today we’re going to continue working on our autoresponder
sequence. For illustrations, I’m going to use an example of a “mini course” but these
ideas apply equally well to anything you put on your autoresponder sequence.
Personally, I would like to see you have a minimum of 3 contacts written by the end of
today.
If that’s not possible, then get it done within the next few days – but get it done!
Remember, this is work you only have to do one time and then it works on autopilot.
I set-up a sequence of 3 contacts spaced 2 days apart. So people would get part 1 of their
mini-course immediately. Then part II – 2 days later and part III – 2 days after that.
One of the easiest ways to come up with content for this autoresponder is simply to
“recycle” existing content.
Here’s what I mean…
When I created my 3-part mini course on direct mail – I simply took an existing article I
wrote and divided into 3 segments.
Easy!
You can do the exact same thing by taking an excerpt from your book or newsletter. Or,
if you’ve written articles – simply break them up into several parts like I did.
Think about any existing content you can take and rework it. Keep thinking until you
come up with a few possibilities!
Another almost painless way to get this done is brainstorm the 10 biggest mistakes (or 7
if you can’t do 10) customers making buying your type of product or service.
It doesn’t have to be long, in fact, a couple of paragraphs under each mistake and you’re
in business.
Now let me give you a few more tips for creating your autoresponder sequence.
When message #1 comes you want to immediately identify they’ve requested it and what
they are getting. Something like this:
* * *
Subject: {first name} – your free report you requested
Hi {first name},
Thank you for requesting the free report... "{Title}"
Inside this report you'll discover the secrets to {benefit
or secrets you’re sharing}. So let's get started...
==========================================
"{7 Little-Known Secrets to xxxx}"
By {Your Name}
==========================================
* * *
Next, when you’re closing day 1 – give people something to look forward to and also a
reminder to pass along your information. Something like this:
* * *
Now just by using these first 2 secrets you'll be way ahead
of any of competitors...but wait, there's still more!
NEXT -- Emailed to you in 2 days will be 'Part II' of
this special report on {your topic}. Find out:
Secret #3 – {name of secret}
{Give benefit of learning this here}
Secret #4 – {name of secret}
{Give benefit of learning this here}
=======================================
And Still Coming Up In A Few Days:
=======================================
Secret #5 – {name of secret}
Secret #6 – {name of secret}
Secret #7 – {name of secret}
See you on 2 days for part II!
All the best,
{Your Name}
{http://www.yoursite.com}
{mailto:youremail@yourISP.com}
P.S. If you have a friend who would benefit from this report,
please pass this on. Or they can get their own copy
by sending a blank e-mail to...
{mailto:autoresponderemail@ISP.com}
* * *
On the second installment you should again jog people’s memories and remind them
about the report. Here’s a simple way:
* * *
Subject: {first name} – Here’s part II of the free report you requested
Hello Again {first name},
It's time for Part II of your free report... "{Title}"
I hope that you have been considering how to use the first few
secrets you were presented in the first installment.
And now let's keep going...
==========================================
"{7 Little-Known Secrets to xxxx}" Part II
By {Your Name}
==========================================
* * *
And once again let them know what they should expect on the next installment.
Also, please don’t forget to include some kind of advertisement (you can put several)
inside your follow-up messages for your product or service. That’s the whole point,
right?
Now, I want to show exactly how easy it is to set-up your autoresponder sequence. I’m
going to show you the control panel from Aweber – here’s how it works.
Once you login – select which list you’d like to manage.
Then click on the top “messages” tab.
If this is your first time accessing the account it will let you create message #1 (this is the
first message that your subscribers will see)
You can use all types of personalization and neat features like automatic date insertion,
etc. with the pull down menu “personalization fields”. Aweber will also check your saved
message against Spam Assassin’s filters to make sure your message gets through. It’ll
show which spots are trouble so you can correct it.
For the next messages you can set the interval times that you want them to hit after the
previous message.
That’s about it. There’s really nothing else left except your assignment for today (I bet
you already guessed what it was)…
Today’s Assignment:
1. Create a 3-part (at least) autoresponder sequence system and load it into
whichever autoresponder system you are using.
Maybe your content is only long enough for 2 days – don’t worry. The same thing
happened to me on the autoresponder sequence for a new project called “Get Fit While
You Sit”.
I broke up the information into 2 days and then on the 3rd day I gave people an
unexpected bonus – a free healthy recipe. This was good because it put people into a
habit of hearing from my client and secondly, it was an unexpected free bonus.
Today’s Resources:
Complete and comprehensive resource about autoresponders that make money! You get
an entire swipe file filled with tons of winning examples (and more)
WebAdMagic
Simple fill-in-the-blank autoresponder templates for just about any situation or any
business
Instant Autoresponders
Recommended Autoresponder Services:
A Weber
Get Response
To write up your autoresponder messages and install them in your autoresponder.
Skills Needed:
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Word Processing
Today’s Lesson:
Welcome to Day 9 – today we’re going to continue working on our autoresponder
sequence. For illustrations, I’m going to use an example of a “mini course” but these
ideas apply equally well to anything you put on your autoresponder sequence.
Personally, I would like to see you have a minimum of 3 contacts written by the end of
today.
If that’s not possible, then get it done within the next few days – but get it done!
Remember, this is work you only have to do one time and then it works on autopilot.
I set-up a sequence of 3 contacts spaced 2 days apart. So people would get part 1 of their
mini-course immediately. Then part II – 2 days later and part III – 2 days after that.
One of the easiest ways to come up with content for this autoresponder is simply to
“recycle” existing content.
Here’s what I mean…
When I created my 3-part mini course on direct mail – I simply took an existing article I
wrote and divided into 3 segments.
Easy!
You can do the exact same thing by taking an excerpt from your book or newsletter. Or,
if you’ve written articles – simply break them up into several parts like I did.
Think about any existing content you can take and rework it. Keep thinking until you
come up with a few possibilities!
Another almost painless way to get this done is brainstorm the 10 biggest mistakes (or 7
if you can’t do 10) customers making buying your type of product or service.
It doesn’t have to be long, in fact, a couple of paragraphs under each mistake and you’re
in business.
Now let me give you a few more tips for creating your autoresponder sequence.
When message #1 comes you want to immediately identify they’ve requested it and what
they are getting. Something like this:
* * *
Subject: {first name} – your free report you requested
Hi {first name},
Thank you for requesting the free report... "{Title}"
Inside this report you'll discover the secrets to {benefit
or secrets you’re sharing}. So let's get started...
==========================================
"{7 Little-Known Secrets to xxxx}"
By {Your Name}
==========================================
* * *
Next, when you’re closing day 1 – give people something to look forward to and also a
reminder to pass along your information. Something like this:
* * *
Now just by using these first 2 secrets you'll be way ahead
of any of competitors...but wait, there's still more!
NEXT -- Emailed to you in 2 days will be 'Part II' of
this special report on {your topic}. Find out:
Secret #3 – {name of secret}
{Give benefit of learning this here}
Secret #4 – {name of secret}
{Give benefit of learning this here}
=======================================
And Still Coming Up In A Few Days:
=======================================
Secret #5 – {name of secret}
Secret #6 – {name of secret}
Secret #7 – {name of secret}
See you on 2 days for part II!
All the best,
{Your Name}
{http://www.yoursite.com}
{mailto:youremail@yourISP.com}
P.S. If you have a friend who would benefit from this report,
please pass this on. Or they can get their own copy
by sending a blank e-mail to...
{mailto:autoresponderemail@ISP.com}
* * *
On the second installment you should again jog people’s memories and remind them
about the report. Here’s a simple way:
* * *
Subject: {first name} – Here’s part II of the free report you requested
Hello Again {first name},
It's time for Part II of your free report... "{Title}"
I hope that you have been considering how to use the first few
secrets you were presented in the first installment.
And now let's keep going...
==========================================
"{7 Little-Known Secrets to xxxx}" Part II
By {Your Name}
==========================================
* * *
And once again let them know what they should expect on the next installment.
Also, please don’t forget to include some kind of advertisement (you can put several)
inside your follow-up messages for your product or service. That’s the whole point,
right?
Now, I want to show exactly how easy it is to set-up your autoresponder sequence. I’m
going to show you the control panel from Aweber – here’s how it works.
Once you login – select which list you’d like to manage.
Then click on the top “messages” tab.
If this is your first time accessing the account it will let you create message #1 (this is the
first message that your subscribers will see)
You can use all types of personalization and neat features like automatic date insertion,
etc. with the pull down menu “personalization fields”. Aweber will also check your saved
message against Spam Assassin’s filters to make sure your message gets through. It’ll
show which spots are trouble so you can correct it.
For the next messages you can set the interval times that you want them to hit after the
previous message.
That’s about it. There’s really nothing else left except your assignment for today (I bet
you already guessed what it was)…
Today’s Assignment:
1. Create a 3-part (at least) autoresponder sequence system and load it into
whichever autoresponder system you are using.
Maybe your content is only long enough for 2 days – don’t worry. The same thing
happened to me on the autoresponder sequence for a new project called “Get Fit While
You Sit”.
I broke up the information into 2 days and then on the 3rd day I gave people an
unexpected bonus – a free healthy recipe. This was good because it put people into a
habit of hearing from my client and secondly, it was an unexpected free bonus.
Today’s Resources:
Complete and comprehensive resource about autoresponders that make money! You get
an entire swipe file filled with tons of winning examples (and more)
WebAdMagic
Simple fill-in-the-blank autoresponder templates for just about any situation or any
business
Instant Autoresponders
Recommended Autoresponder Services:
A Weber
Get Response
Day 8 (Monday) - Start creating the Autoresponder sequence for your site
Lesson Objective:
To explain the various ways the autoresponder can be used; to look at various “real-
world” examples; and to start creating your autoresponder follow-up sequence.
Skills Needed:
· Imagination
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Word Processing
Today’s Lesson:
Welcome to week 2 of your 33 day journey to online profits!
This week we’re going to lay the groundwork for your online marketing – starting with a
secondary response on your site.
When people leave my sites I want to have a mechanism in place that will capture their
email addresses so I can follow-up.
Even if you've got a killer sales letter that is getting a 5% conversion you still have 95%
of your visitors leaving!
Why not create a way to make money from that majority as well?
I'll explain all of this in a moment.
First, you need to think about your secondary response mechanism. What is the
secondary objective of your site?
If you said "capture emails" – you’re right!
This is building your 'opt-in' list (and this gives you the ability to make money on
demand).
In order to capture the email addresses I suggest a free report or training course
sequenced over several days delivered via email autoresponder.
You don't need to use a report or training course as your secondary response. You can
just have people subscribe to updates from you, or download a free excerpt, etc.
Or maybe you're doing an online newsletter; just provide a "light" version every month to
opt-in subscribers where you heavily edit down your real content.
Really, the possibilities are endless but you need to provide enough compelling value that
visitors will part with their email address.
Using A Sequential Email Autoresponder
It's like having little follow-up robots working for your 24/7. And your prospects don't
slip through the cracks.
The company I use charges me something only $19.95/month and they have lots of cool
things in their system that makes them the best value for your money.
· They let you personalize your messages.
· They let you use actual dates in your message (so instead of saving 2 days ago
you requested our information - it says on Saturday you requested our
information).
· You can do complete broadcasts of your email list (as many times as you like no
matter how big your list gets)
· You can import/export names
· You get unlimited messages.
· You can use their tracking features to track sales all the way through from opt-in
to final sale.
· You get unlimited campaigns. So you can have 1 account and run 10 different
sequences for 10 different sites if you like.
· They have actual live customer support you can call or get a direct response from
via email.
· Mail delivery is a very real problem and these guys are one of the best when it
comes to working hand-in-hand with ISPs (including AOL) to make sure their
servers are not black-listed and your mail actually gets through.
All in all - I think they've got a really good system.
You can find them here
Okay, so let me get back to our secondary response.
I use a 3-part 'mini course' on direct mail called: "7 Direct Mail Secrets Guaranteed To
Create A Stampede of New Business!"
I deliver it in 3 parts spread 2 days apart. So I get to contact a prospect 3 times in a matter
of a few days. I give them lots of good information and I also deliver a little
"commercial" promoting my Instant Sales Letters.
To get a good grasp on exactly how these autoresponder sequences work I suggest you
fire up your browser and join me for a little mini tour.
You’ll see how some sites use “popup” boxes when you leave or when you enter. Others
just ask for your information on the actual web page.
Take a look at these sites for great examples of autoresponder sequences that have made
people a lot of money:
Amazing Formula – sign up for the weekly marketing tip
Aweber - sign up for their free “test drive”
Today’s Assignment:
1. Pay attention to web sites that use autoresponders. Create a new folder in your
email box with samples of follow up emails.
2. Think about how you are going to use an autoresponder. Are you going to give
away a free course? Report? Industry updates? Etc.
Today’s Resources:
Complete and comprehensive resource about autoresponders that make money! You get
an entire swipe file filled with tons of winning examples (and more)
WebAdMagic
Simple fill-in-the-blank autoresponder templates for just about any situation or any
business
Instant Autoresponders
Recommended Autoresponder Services:
Aweber
Get Response
Popup Windows:
FREE! PopUp Generator - provides a complete PC software package to create
various pop-up's to use on your website. A "must have" if you are serious
about using popup windows to make money!
To explain the various ways the autoresponder can be used; to look at various “real-
world” examples; and to start creating your autoresponder follow-up sequence.
Skills Needed:
· Imagination
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Word Processing
Today’s Lesson:
Welcome to week 2 of your 33 day journey to online profits!
This week we’re going to lay the groundwork for your online marketing – starting with a
secondary response on your site.
When people leave my sites I want to have a mechanism in place that will capture their
email addresses so I can follow-up.
Even if you've got a killer sales letter that is getting a 5% conversion you still have 95%
of your visitors leaving!
Why not create a way to make money from that majority as well?
I'll explain all of this in a moment.
First, you need to think about your secondary response mechanism. What is the
secondary objective of your site?
If you said "capture emails" – you’re right!
This is building your 'opt-in' list (and this gives you the ability to make money on
demand).
In order to capture the email addresses I suggest a free report or training course
sequenced over several days delivered via email autoresponder.
You don't need to use a report or training course as your secondary response. You can
just have people subscribe to updates from you, or download a free excerpt, etc.
Or maybe you're doing an online newsletter; just provide a "light" version every month to
opt-in subscribers where you heavily edit down your real content.
Really, the possibilities are endless but you need to provide enough compelling value that
visitors will part with their email address.
Using A Sequential Email Autoresponder
It's like having little follow-up robots working for your 24/7. And your prospects don't
slip through the cracks.
The company I use charges me something only $19.95/month and they have lots of cool
things in their system that makes them the best value for your money.
· They let you personalize your messages.
· They let you use actual dates in your message (so instead of saving 2 days ago
you requested our information - it says on Saturday you requested our
information).
· You can do complete broadcasts of your email list (as many times as you like no
matter how big your list gets)
· You can import/export names
· You get unlimited messages.
· You can use their tracking features to track sales all the way through from opt-in
to final sale.
· You get unlimited campaigns. So you can have 1 account and run 10 different
sequences for 10 different sites if you like.
· They have actual live customer support you can call or get a direct response from
via email.
· Mail delivery is a very real problem and these guys are one of the best when it
comes to working hand-in-hand with ISPs (including AOL) to make sure their
servers are not black-listed and your mail actually gets through.
All in all - I think they've got a really good system.
You can find them here
Okay, so let me get back to our secondary response.
I use a 3-part 'mini course' on direct mail called: "7 Direct Mail Secrets Guaranteed To
Create A Stampede of New Business!"
I deliver it in 3 parts spread 2 days apart. So I get to contact a prospect 3 times in a matter
of a few days. I give them lots of good information and I also deliver a little
"commercial" promoting my Instant Sales Letters.
To get a good grasp on exactly how these autoresponder sequences work I suggest you
fire up your browser and join me for a little mini tour.
You’ll see how some sites use “popup” boxes when you leave or when you enter. Others
just ask for your information on the actual web page.
Take a look at these sites for great examples of autoresponder sequences that have made
people a lot of money:
Amazing Formula – sign up for the weekly marketing tip
Aweber - sign up for their free “test drive”
Today’s Assignment:
1. Pay attention to web sites that use autoresponders. Create a new folder in your
email box with samples of follow up emails.
2. Think about how you are going to use an autoresponder. Are you going to give
away a free course? Report? Industry updates? Etc.
Today’s Resources:
Complete and comprehensive resource about autoresponders that make money! You get
an entire swipe file filled with tons of winning examples (and more)
WebAdMagic
Simple fill-in-the-blank autoresponder templates for just about any situation or any
business
Instant Autoresponders
Recommended Autoresponder Services:
Aweber
Get Response
Popup Windows:
FREE! PopUp Generator - provides a complete PC software package to create
various pop-up's to use on your website. A "must have" if you are serious
about using popup windows to make money!
Day 7 (Sunday) - Website posting and “surf” day
Objective: Post your entire website to the web and start checking out the “competition”
for possible joint venture partners.
Skills Needed:
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Email
· Basic HTML
· Basic FTP
· Basic Word Processing
Today’s Lesson:
Part 1 – Inserting “meta-tags” into your site.
Today we’re going to finish up one last important bit on your site and then post it all up
to the web.
Inserting the “meta-tags” into each page represents the “icing” on the cake for most sites.
Meta-tags, bits of code in the html documents that make up your website, help the search
engines identify your site and can help make your site more relevant to a keyword search.
3 meta-tags should concern you – but only one of them really warrants serious attention.
1. “title” tag – this tag serves multiple purposes…
a. It tells the search engines the title of your page and usually shows up as
the “clickable” link visitors choose in the search engine results.
b. Since it is the first thing people see in the search engines, it often serves as
the “headline” for your search engine listings.
c. The title tag also causes the title of the page to display in the upper left
border of most web browsers.
d. It also serves as the title of the page when someone prints it out on paper.
e. The title tag is by far the most important tag in the eyes of most major
search engines.
2. “keyword” tag – this tag lists off the relevant and related keywords to the subject
of your page. Most search engines pay very little attention to this tag… some
ignore it completely.
3. “description” tag – this tag lists a description of your page. This description often
displays in the search results of many search engines under the title tag. It acts
almost like your classified ad for your listing.
These tags get inserted in the html code of your page near the top in between the
tag and the tag.
All of your tags as well as the first words on the page should start with the most relevant
keyword phrase for that particular page.
Here’s what the code at the top of each page might look like:
antique car show information
Also, the first words on your page would go something like this:
(Title) Antique Car Show
(Body text) Antique car show enthusiasts here's the site you've been looking for!
NOTE: Every meta-tag, as well as the title physically appearing on the page and
the first words of the first paragraph start with that same keyword phrase. In this
case it’s “antique car show”.
Create and insert your meta-tags on every one of your website pages right now!
If you feel like you need a little more help with meta-tags, just go to the nearest search
engines and look up “meta tag generator”. You will find numerous places where you can
enter your title, keywords, etc. and have them automatically formatted free. All you need
to do then is just copy and paste the meta-tags into your html code.
How Google Looks At Your Web Pages
Google pays special attention to your web pages’ title tag and body copy (visible text on
the page) to determine relevance to the keywords you want to come up under.
If you want to have a better chance of coming up under your particular keywords, make
sure they appear in the title of your page, as well as in the body text and headlines on the
page. Don’t “stuff” keywords (endlessly repeating keywords in a nonsense way), but
rather use them liberally so it’s obvious the main “theme” of your page is about the
particular keyword phrase you want to come up under.
At the time of publication, Google gives almost no weight to the keyword or description
tag. They pay most attention to the title tag, body text, and incoming links from other,
relevant websites -- often referred to as “page reputation” or “link reputation” -- which is
a fancy way of saying they take into account what other similar sites say about your site
by linking to you.
This “link reputation” becomes critical when we talk about “Linking Strategies” on
BONUS Day 34.
If you’re worried about Google, then make sure that:
· Each page has a specific theme centered on one or two keyword sets;
· Each page has the main keywords for that page in the title tag;
· Each page has the main keywords for that page liberally sprinkled throughout the
body text, especially towards the beginning;
· Each page has the main keywords for that page used in a headline or bolded
text if appropriate.
Though these tips won’t guarantee top placement, they will certainly improve your
chances of ranking well massively over not doing them!
Part 2 – Post your site to your hosting account and make sure it works.
Post everything to your hosting account using your ftp program, including:
a. Sales letter
b. About Us page
c. Affiliate Signup page
d. Popup window.
e. All graphics
Configure your order link(s) with your shopping cart and credit card processing so they
are “live” and ready for buyers to give you their money.
Test ALL your links to make sure they work. You do this by opening your site in your
web browser and physically clicking every single one of them!
a. Test every single link on every single page
b. Fix any links that don’t work
c. Get in the habit of checking your site periodically for “dead” links
Test your popup window to make sure it launches correctly.
Test your website in the Internet Explorer web browser as well as Netscape’s web
browser. Test it on America Online (AOL) too if you can.
Make sure:
a. The popup window script works in Internet Explorer, AOL and Netscape.
b. All graphics show up on every single page
c. All text shows up on every single page
d. All links work on every single page
e. Go through the entire order and fulfillment process in each web browser to
make sure every aspect of product ordering and delivery works correctly.
NOTE: Your credit card processing company should provide you a
“dummy” credit card number so you can go through the entire order
process live.
In short, try to *break* your website!
Look for every possible way anybody could:
i. do something wrong
ii. get lost
iii. break something
iv. crash your server
v. cause any type of problems or mayhem
Check your site’s loading speed – does it load fast on a 56K dial up modem?
Change the resolution on your monitor to 640 x 480, 800 x 600, and 1024 x 768 to see
how the site looks at these various screen settings.
NOTE: You may receive quite a shock when you see how your site looks at resolutions
other than the one you normally keep on your monitor.
Review the “Ten Commandments” article on Day 3 if you need a little refresher.
Part 3 – Go find at least 20 “Competitors”
Find at least 20 sites that look like competitors for what you sell.
One of the best ways to find them is through the search engines.
Perform searches for your top keywords and see which sites come up on top.
Sites that come up high in the search results for popular keyword searches probably have
a decent stream of traffic going to their site.
I know it sounds obvious, but you only want to approach sites with traffic when you start
looking for potential Joint Venture (JV) partners.
Create a folder in your browser’s bookmarks or favorites called “potential JVs”.
a. Surf the web and look for competitors’ sites.
b. “Bookmark” these sites so you can come back to them easily.
As you look at these sites ask yourself these questions:
a. What is their unique selling proposition (USP)?
b. What are they selling that I could add to my product to make it better?
c. What are they selling that I could add as a free bonus to my offer?
d. What do I like about their site that I could use to improve my site?
Make notes of things you see and learn that you could use to make your offer,
product, or website better.
Make any obvious and easy improvements or changes to your website based on
what you’ve learned from your surfing.
Email at least 6 friends / business associates and ask them to take a look at your
site so far and give you feedback.
Implement any of their suggestions that make sense and appear to make your site,
your sales letter or anything else better.
Summary of Today’s Assignments:
1. Insert the proper meta-tags into the web pages on your site.
2. If you haven’t already, post your entire website to your hosting account and try to
“break” it.
3. Test every element of the website and look for problem areas.
4. Find at least 20 sites that look like competitors and bookmark them in a folder
called “Potential JV’s”
5. Learn everything you can from these competitors to make your site better.
6. Have at least 6 people give you feedback on your site and the work you have done
so far.
As we set the stage for working with other website operators, we thought this article
would help you understand the “big picture” in arranging your JV’s.
Today’s Resources:
Instant Traffic Stampede – Learn the 7 BEST, proven methods for driving an instant
avalanche of targeted traffic to your website. Make sure you get a copy of the free
report, “7 Secrets To An Instant Traffic Stampede!” available from the exit popup on
the site.
Article - Skyrocket Website Traffic With “OPT”
The most immediate source for website traffic (besides using pay-per-click search
engines) entails the effective use of “OPT” - Other People’s Traffic.
Other website operators have the targeted website visitors you need right now – you just
have to get them to funnel some of it your way.
Your mission is to find people who can refer you their traffic either for a flat fee, as a
trade for services or on a per-click basis.
The quickest way to find people to refer traffic is to take inventory of who you know that
operates a site drawing the type of visitors you need.
Once you have exhausted that list, go to the search engines and do a search for the
keywords that would bring targeted traffic to your site.
Make a list of the websites that rank well in those searches and approach those
individuals with related sites about a traffic deal.
Try to work all your agreements on a traffic trade or per-sale basis first so you won’t
have to pay any cash out of pocket.
If you don’t have enough traffic to trade, or they don’t want to work on commission, then
you should negotiate a per-click or per-signup deal.
This means you only pay when a visitor comes to your site or signs up to receive your
newsletter or other information.
With this structure you only pay for performance and can maximize your return if you do
have to spend money.
You have 4 choices for funneling another site’s traffic to yours: endorsed mailings, popup
windows, link trades, and banners.
Endorsed mailings are by far the best way to funnel traffic from another site.
When you approach someone to do a JV with you this should represent your primary goal
– get the other party to do an endorsed mailing!
A well-written endorsement letter by a website operator who already has a relationship
with people who can buy from you is often worth its weight in gold.
An effective endorsed mailing can result in traffic, sales, and thousands of dollars in your
pocket within mere hours of sending it.
Focused “popup” windows represent the next fastest way to funnel traffic to your site.
When used incorrectly, popup windows create an annoying distraction for web surfers.
Make sure your popup windows are relevant to exactly what visitors want by providing
focused content.
The next way to funnel traffic from other sites is using “Reciprocal Links” – which is a
fancy way of saying trading links with someone. Make sure you negotiate a high profile
spot for your link on the other person’s site.
Don’t let your link get buried way down on the page or you’ve wasted your time.
Banner ads represent the least effective way for getting traffic from other sites because
web surfers have learned to ignore them. However, they can result in traffic if you only
buy them on a per-click basis.
Creativity is key when negotiating with other websites to steer some or all of their traffic
your way.
Create win-win scenarios and many will jump at the chance to work with you
for possible joint venture partners.
Skills Needed:
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Email
· Basic HTML
· Basic FTP
· Basic Word Processing
Today’s Lesson:
Part 1 – Inserting “meta-tags” into your site.
Today we’re going to finish up one last important bit on your site and then post it all up
to the web.
Inserting the “meta-tags” into each page represents the “icing” on the cake for most sites.
Meta-tags, bits of code in the html documents that make up your website, help the search
engines identify your site and can help make your site more relevant to a keyword search.
3 meta-tags should concern you – but only one of them really warrants serious attention.
1. “title” tag – this tag serves multiple purposes…
a. It tells the search engines the title of your page and usually shows up as
the “clickable” link visitors choose in the search engine results.
b. Since it is the first thing people see in the search engines, it often serves as
the “headline” for your search engine listings.
c. The title tag also causes the title of the page to display in the upper left
border of most web browsers.
d. It also serves as the title of the page when someone prints it out on paper.
e. The title tag is by far the most important tag in the eyes of most major
search engines.
2. “keyword” tag – this tag lists off the relevant and related keywords to the subject
of your page. Most search engines pay very little attention to this tag… some
ignore it completely.
3. “description” tag – this tag lists a description of your page. This description often
displays in the search results of many search engines under the title tag. It acts
almost like your classified ad for your listing.
These tags get inserted in the html code of your page near the top in between the
tag and the tag.
All of your tags as well as the first words on the page should start with the most relevant
keyword phrase for that particular page.
Here’s what the code at the top of each page might look like:
Also, the first words on your page would go something like this:
(Title) Antique Car Show
(Body text) Antique car show enthusiasts here's the site you've been looking for!
NOTE: Every meta-tag, as well as the title physically appearing on the page and
the first words of the first paragraph start with that same keyword phrase. In this
case it’s “antique car show”.
Create and insert your meta-tags on every one of your website pages right now!
If you feel like you need a little more help with meta-tags, just go to the nearest search
engines and look up “meta tag generator”. You will find numerous places where you can
enter your title, keywords, etc. and have them automatically formatted free. All you need
to do then is just copy and paste the meta-tags into your html code.
How Google Looks At Your Web Pages
Google pays special attention to your web pages’ title tag and body copy (visible text on
the page) to determine relevance to the keywords you want to come up under.
If you want to have a better chance of coming up under your particular keywords, make
sure they appear in the title of your page, as well as in the body text and headlines on the
page. Don’t “stuff” keywords (endlessly repeating keywords in a nonsense way), but
rather use them liberally so it’s obvious the main “theme” of your page is about the
particular keyword phrase you want to come up under.
At the time of publication, Google gives almost no weight to the keyword or description
tag. They pay most attention to the title tag, body text, and incoming links from other,
relevant websites -- often referred to as “page reputation” or “link reputation” -- which is
a fancy way of saying they take into account what other similar sites say about your site
by linking to you.
This “link reputation” becomes critical when we talk about “Linking Strategies” on
BONUS Day 34.
If you’re worried about Google, then make sure that:
· Each page has a specific theme centered on one or two keyword sets;
· Each page has the main keywords for that page in the title tag;
· Each page has the main keywords for that page liberally sprinkled throughout the
body text, especially towards the beginning;
· Each page has the main keywords for that page used in a headline or bolded
text if appropriate.
Though these tips won’t guarantee top placement, they will certainly improve your
chances of ranking well massively over not doing them!
Part 2 – Post your site to your hosting account and make sure it works.
Post everything to your hosting account using your ftp program, including:
a. Sales letter
b. About Us page
c. Affiliate Signup page
d. Popup window.
e. All graphics
Configure your order link(s) with your shopping cart and credit card processing so they
are “live” and ready for buyers to give you their money.
Test ALL your links to make sure they work. You do this by opening your site in your
web browser and physically clicking every single one of them!
a. Test every single link on every single page
b. Fix any links that don’t work
c. Get in the habit of checking your site periodically for “dead” links
Test your popup window to make sure it launches correctly.
Test your website in the Internet Explorer web browser as well as Netscape’s web
browser. Test it on America Online (AOL) too if you can.
Make sure:
a. The popup window script works in Internet Explorer, AOL and Netscape.
b. All graphics show up on every single page
c. All text shows up on every single page
d. All links work on every single page
e. Go through the entire order and fulfillment process in each web browser to
make sure every aspect of product ordering and delivery works correctly.
NOTE: Your credit card processing company should provide you a
“dummy” credit card number so you can go through the entire order
process live.
In short, try to *break* your website!
Look for every possible way anybody could:
i. do something wrong
ii. get lost
iii. break something
iv. crash your server
v. cause any type of problems or mayhem
Check your site’s loading speed – does it load fast on a 56K dial up modem?
Change the resolution on your monitor to 640 x 480, 800 x 600, and 1024 x 768 to see
how the site looks at these various screen settings.
NOTE: You may receive quite a shock when you see how your site looks at resolutions
other than the one you normally keep on your monitor.
Review the “Ten Commandments” article on Day 3 if you need a little refresher.
Part 3 – Go find at least 20 “Competitors”
Find at least 20 sites that look like competitors for what you sell.
One of the best ways to find them is through the search engines.
Perform searches for your top keywords and see which sites come up on top.
Sites that come up high in the search results for popular keyword searches probably have
a decent stream of traffic going to their site.
I know it sounds obvious, but you only want to approach sites with traffic when you start
looking for potential Joint Venture (JV) partners.
Create a folder in your browser’s bookmarks or favorites called “potential JVs”.
a. Surf the web and look for competitors’ sites.
b. “Bookmark” these sites so you can come back to them easily.
As you look at these sites ask yourself these questions:
a. What is their unique selling proposition (USP)?
b. What are they selling that I could add to my product to make it better?
c. What are they selling that I could add as a free bonus to my offer?
d. What do I like about their site that I could use to improve my site?
Make notes of things you see and learn that you could use to make your offer,
product, or website better.
Make any obvious and easy improvements or changes to your website based on
what you’ve learned from your surfing.
Email at least 6 friends / business associates and ask them to take a look at your
site so far and give you feedback.
Implement any of their suggestions that make sense and appear to make your site,
your sales letter or anything else better.
Summary of Today’s Assignments:
1. Insert the proper meta-tags into the web pages on your site.
2. If you haven’t already, post your entire website to your hosting account and try to
“break” it.
3. Test every element of the website and look for problem areas.
4. Find at least 20 sites that look like competitors and bookmark them in a folder
called “Potential JV’s”
5. Learn everything you can from these competitors to make your site better.
6. Have at least 6 people give you feedback on your site and the work you have done
so far.
As we set the stage for working with other website operators, we thought this article
would help you understand the “big picture” in arranging your JV’s.
Today’s Resources:
Instant Traffic Stampede – Learn the 7 BEST, proven methods for driving an instant
avalanche of targeted traffic to your website. Make sure you get a copy of the free
report, “7 Secrets To An Instant Traffic Stampede!” available from the exit popup on
the site.
Article - Skyrocket Website Traffic With “OPT”
The most immediate source for website traffic (besides using pay-per-click search
engines) entails the effective use of “OPT” - Other People’s Traffic.
Other website operators have the targeted website visitors you need right now – you just
have to get them to funnel some of it your way.
Your mission is to find people who can refer you their traffic either for a flat fee, as a
trade for services or on a per-click basis.
The quickest way to find people to refer traffic is to take inventory of who you know that
operates a site drawing the type of visitors you need.
Once you have exhausted that list, go to the search engines and do a search for the
keywords that would bring targeted traffic to your site.
Make a list of the websites that rank well in those searches and approach those
individuals with related sites about a traffic deal.
Try to work all your agreements on a traffic trade or per-sale basis first so you won’t
have to pay any cash out of pocket.
If you don’t have enough traffic to trade, or they don’t want to work on commission, then
you should negotiate a per-click or per-signup deal.
This means you only pay when a visitor comes to your site or signs up to receive your
newsletter or other information.
With this structure you only pay for performance and can maximize your return if you do
have to spend money.
You have 4 choices for funneling another site’s traffic to yours: endorsed mailings, popup
windows, link trades, and banners.
Endorsed mailings are by far the best way to funnel traffic from another site.
When you approach someone to do a JV with you this should represent your primary goal
– get the other party to do an endorsed mailing!
A well-written endorsement letter by a website operator who already has a relationship
with people who can buy from you is often worth its weight in gold.
An effective endorsed mailing can result in traffic, sales, and thousands of dollars in your
pocket within mere hours of sending it.
Focused “popup” windows represent the next fastest way to funnel traffic to your site.
When used incorrectly, popup windows create an annoying distraction for web surfers.
Make sure your popup windows are relevant to exactly what visitors want by providing
focused content.
The next way to funnel traffic from other sites is using “Reciprocal Links” – which is a
fancy way of saying trading links with someone. Make sure you negotiate a high profile
spot for your link on the other person’s site.
Don’t let your link get buried way down on the page or you’ve wasted your time.
Banner ads represent the least effective way for getting traffic from other sites because
web surfers have learned to ignore them. However, they can result in traffic if you only
buy them on a per-click basis.
Creativity is key when negotiating with other websites to steer some or all of their traffic
your way.
Create win-win scenarios and many will jump at the chance to work with you
Day 6 (Saturday) - Pull the sales letter together and post it on the website
Lesson Objective:
To put together your sales letter into final form so you can post it up to the web
tomorrow.
Skills Needed:
· Imagination
· Basic Word Processing
You may have noticed that a lot of the information products, websites, and ebooks you’ve
seen have “covers” or software “boxes” even though everything is delivered
electronically.
This isn’t by accident!
The human mind thinks in pictures and it’s hard to imagine what an ebook or a software
package looks like when you go to purchase it. However, with the right “virtual”
packaging, it’s easy for people to visualize what they’re buying from you!
Remember when you purchased this course? We had a really nice ebook “cover” on the
website so you instantly got a feel for what we were selling and how you could benefit.
If you want to get a “virtual” cover, package or box for your product – there’s only one
place we recommend – Killer Covers!
They did the cover for this ebook and many of our other online projects.
Visit their website to get a feel for how a cover can totally change your product’s
appearance and impact your sales like you never dreamed possible. At the very least
you’ll get some ideas on how you can do your own cover if you choose to do it yourself!
Alright -- on to day 6!
Today’s Lesson:
Today, we’re going to take the major components you created yesterday and “stitch and
sew” them together into a great sales letter.
But before we go there let me give you a few more tips for effective cyber-copywriting…
==================
Cyber Copy Tips
==================
When writing your copy throw everything you learned in English 101 out the window.
Write just like you talk
Use plain, easy to understand English. Nobody cares if you can use xenophobia and
ostentatious in a sentence. Write almost like you're talking to a buddy over a beer. So that
means using contractions. Be friendly and personable in your writing.
In fact, you'll notice I use phrases like "Look" or "I just told you about..." or "Listen".
These are all "talking phrases".
Write to one person
Try to think of the ideal prospect as you write and make the message just for them. Even
if your web site will be read by thousands of people each day - every person will read it
one at a time. Use "you" and "your" liberally. Focus on them, not yourself.
Keep your sentences and paragraphs very short and simple.
Period.
Sentences (and even paragraphs) can even be one word like that last one.
And paragraphs should be no more than 4 or 5 lines.
You want your web site to look easy to read with a lot of white space. Make it inviting.
Long blocks of words are scary (especially online). Paragraph breaks do not need to be
determined by content.
This is critical for your web site because reading on the screen is even more difficult than
on paper!
Make your subheads provide an entire sales message
Subheads should be like mini-headlines. Use them to break up large bodies of text and to
bring people back into the body of the letter.
A lot of people will scan your web site so you need to make your subheads give a
complete selling message by themselves. That way even people who just scan you web
site can be sold.
Many times I'll use the rejected headlines (from our last lesson) for the subheads.
Use lots of bullets
To make long letters look easier to read and draw attention to your message use lots of
bullets and be sure to make them double-spaced so the web page looks easy to read.
You can use bullets, checkmarks or numbers.
Make It Easy To Read
There are three graphic embellishments you want to stay away from in your web copy.
They are underlines, italics and ALL CAPS.
Underlining is typically used to identify hyperlinks so you don't want to confuse readers
with underlines.
ALL CAPS, like this, makes it much more difficult to read (especially on a screen).
Italics usually come out difficult to read on the screen also, the only spot I'll use italics is
for my testimonials.
Also, to make it easy to read avoid reverse type (white type on dark backgrounds). Stick
with a light background and dark type.
Remember if people can't read what you're saying… they can't buy.
To give emphasis to certain passages you can use Bolding, Boxes and yellow
highlighting.
Margins
You want to bring your margins in closer on the web site.
So instead of using the whole screen you or your webmaster needs to set the margins
closer for easier reading.
Never, ever make people scroll left or right to read your sales letter.
People's eyes have difficulties reading anything that is set too wide.
That's why you'll notice most magazines and newspaper are set in columns.
* * *
Now, with all of that said, you should model your sales letter after proven winners.
Go explore around the Net and bookmark copy that compels you to buy. Take the best
elements from all of these and combine them into your own sales letter.
In fact, one of the ways I learned to write copy so well was to write out (in my own
handwriting) proven sales letters from the masters.
This is the quickest and easiest way for the process to become imprinted in your mind.
Today’s Assignment:
1. Put together your own winning sales letter.
2. Take the elements from your last homework assignment and cut and stitch them
together.
3. You should also have a file of sales letters you’ve seen online you like -- and you
should also be saving your junk mail.
4. Pay attention to the headlines, openings, P.S.s, subheads, guarantees, transitions,
etc. (all the spots we talked about).
5. Also, be sure to read the article in the resource section about how to test your
sales letter before releasing it.
Today’s Resources:
Killer Covers – get an incredible visual representation of your product or service so
prospects immediately know what you sell!
How To Use Testing For Breakthrough Marketing Results
By Yanik Silver
Advertising is expensive. And it costs you the same amount of money to run an ad (or
mail a letter) that brings in 2 customers as one that drives in 20 customers. So that
difference is in your ad (or letter).
Let's say you've come up with what you think is a good ad (powerful headline, good
offer, sizzling copy, etc.), now you're ready to test.
Testing will help you:
1. Save yourself a bunch of money.
2. Improve any results you're currently getting.
3. Stop guessing about what works.
I'd say those are some pretty good reasons to learn all about testing and how to apply it to
your business. So before spending loads of money on your new ad you can (and should)
do a few low-cost/no-cost tests:
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The Sleep On It Test
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
First, you should let your ad sit for at least a day. Then the next day you can come back to
it with new eyes and a fresher perspective. You can find errors that weren't apparent
before.
Also, your chances of writing a good ad are significantly improved with rewriting. (I will
rewrite an ad or letter 3, 4 or 5 times before I'm done.)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Reading Aloud Test
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I don't know what it is about reading something aloud versus reading to yourself, but
you'll pick up lots and lots of insight into how good (or bad) your ad really is by reading
it aloud. All the bumps and rough spots jump out at you.
Or a variation on this is to have someone else read it you. This is even better. As they're
reading it, you should take out a copy of the ad and make notes on it. One big advantage
of this is your reader is completely impartial.
He won't stress certain phrases or words to make the meaning clearer. And if the reader is
having trouble you know that's an area to edit.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Sneaky Opinion Test
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This test is really great. Take your ad off your printer and make a xerox copy of it. Then
go around to a few people who should be in your target market and say something like,
"Take a look at this, I just found this in a magazine." Key point: Do not tell people you
wrote the ad because they'll be say how nice it is.
You're gauging their response. If they say something like "Did you write this?" or "This
is really good." What that really means is your ad stinks.
But if you start hearing "Do you know how I can get this done?" or "Do you do this?"
then you know you're on to something good and ready to spend money on your test.
Opinions are great, but the only votes that really count are the ones that are paid for. The
first thing you *don't* want to do is call every newspaper, magazine, throw-away, etc.
You need to start by testing small. And that means spending as little as possible to get
accurate results.
=-=-=-=-=-=-
Test Small
=-=-=-=-=-=-
Joe Sugarman (He sold millions of Blu-blocker sunglasses) tells how he would test all his
ads in the Southwestern edition of the Wall Street Journal. Because this was the cheapest
and smallest edition of the Journal to test.
That way he was able to read results quickly and then decide whether or not to 'roll-out'
to other editions. So how can you apply this information to your business?
Easy.
Let's say you've been running ads in your local paper. Well, usually newspapers have
zoned editions based on zip codes. So instead of paying for your ad to appear in the entire
circulation, you simply put it in one of the cheapest and most representative zones
available.
And by tracking the response (using a specific phone#, person, extension#, etc.) you can
safely predict what results you'll get once you go out to the entire circulation.
One more point: It's better to run your test ad in a daily paper instead of a monthly
magazine. Simply because you can ascertain information more quickly.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Don't Fall For Your Ad Rep's Traps
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
You cannot multiply zero. That means if there is no life in your ad -- kill it before it
drains more money and time from you.
Don't listen to your media rep's b.s. about repetition and getting discounts for multiple
insertions. Remember, these guys have no clue about how to create advertising that
works. If they did, they'd be running ads in their own magazines and making tons of
money.
Infomercial marketers realize this point. Imagine spending $100,000.00 to produce one
single 30 minute spot and then buying $400 - $1,000 in media to test it out. That's what
infomercial companies do.
They know if the phones aren't ringing after a couple of TV spots -- they're definitely not
going to ring if they throw tens of thousands of dollars in media at it, either.
Follow these tips and you'll be able to save a lot of money plus increase response. Just
test until you come up with a winner and then keep running it!
To put together your sales letter into final form so you can post it up to the web
tomorrow.
Skills Needed:
· Imagination
· Basic Word Processing
You may have noticed that a lot of the information products, websites, and ebooks you’ve
seen have “covers” or software “boxes” even though everything is delivered
electronically.
This isn’t by accident!
The human mind thinks in pictures and it’s hard to imagine what an ebook or a software
package looks like when you go to purchase it. However, with the right “virtual”
packaging, it’s easy for people to visualize what they’re buying from you!
Remember when you purchased this course? We had a really nice ebook “cover” on the
website so you instantly got a feel for what we were selling and how you could benefit.
If you want to get a “virtual” cover, package or box for your product – there’s only one
place we recommend – Killer Covers!
They did the cover for this ebook and many of our other online projects.
Visit their website to get a feel for how a cover can totally change your product’s
appearance and impact your sales like you never dreamed possible. At the very least
you’ll get some ideas on how you can do your own cover if you choose to do it yourself!
Alright -- on to day 6!
Today’s Lesson:
Today, we’re going to take the major components you created yesterday and “stitch and
sew” them together into a great sales letter.
But before we go there let me give you a few more tips for effective cyber-copywriting…
==================
Cyber Copy Tips
==================
When writing your copy throw everything you learned in English 101 out the window.
Write just like you talk
Use plain, easy to understand English. Nobody cares if you can use xenophobia and
ostentatious in a sentence. Write almost like you're talking to a buddy over a beer. So that
means using contractions. Be friendly and personable in your writing.
In fact, you'll notice I use phrases like "Look" or "I just told you about..." or "Listen".
These are all "talking phrases".
Write to one person
Try to think of the ideal prospect as you write and make the message just for them. Even
if your web site will be read by thousands of people each day - every person will read it
one at a time. Use "you" and "your" liberally. Focus on them, not yourself.
Keep your sentences and paragraphs very short and simple.
Period.
Sentences (and even paragraphs) can even be one word like that last one.
And paragraphs should be no more than 4 or 5 lines.
You want your web site to look easy to read with a lot of white space. Make it inviting.
Long blocks of words are scary (especially online). Paragraph breaks do not need to be
determined by content.
This is critical for your web site because reading on the screen is even more difficult than
on paper!
Make your subheads provide an entire sales message
Subheads should be like mini-headlines. Use them to break up large bodies of text and to
bring people back into the body of the letter.
A lot of people will scan your web site so you need to make your subheads give a
complete selling message by themselves. That way even people who just scan you web
site can be sold.
Many times I'll use the rejected headlines (from our last lesson) for the subheads.
Use lots of bullets
To make long letters look easier to read and draw attention to your message use lots of
bullets and be sure to make them double-spaced so the web page looks easy to read.
You can use bullets, checkmarks or numbers.
Make It Easy To Read
There are three graphic embellishments you want to stay away from in your web copy.
They are underlines, italics and ALL CAPS.
Underlining is typically used to identify hyperlinks so you don't want to confuse readers
with underlines.
ALL CAPS, like this, makes it much more difficult to read (especially on a screen).
Italics usually come out difficult to read on the screen also, the only spot I'll use italics is
for my testimonials.
Also, to make it easy to read avoid reverse type (white type on dark backgrounds). Stick
with a light background and dark type.
Remember if people can't read what you're saying… they can't buy.
To give emphasis to certain passages you can use Bolding, Boxes and yellow
highlighting.
Margins
You want to bring your margins in closer on the web site.
So instead of using the whole screen you or your webmaster needs to set the margins
closer for easier reading.
Never, ever make people scroll left or right to read your sales letter.
People's eyes have difficulties reading anything that is set too wide.
That's why you'll notice most magazines and newspaper are set in columns.
* * *
Now, with all of that said, you should model your sales letter after proven winners.
Go explore around the Net and bookmark copy that compels you to buy. Take the best
elements from all of these and combine them into your own sales letter.
In fact, one of the ways I learned to write copy so well was to write out (in my own
handwriting) proven sales letters from the masters.
This is the quickest and easiest way for the process to become imprinted in your mind.
Today’s Assignment:
1. Put together your own winning sales letter.
2. Take the elements from your last homework assignment and cut and stitch them
together.
3. You should also have a file of sales letters you’ve seen online you like -- and you
should also be saving your junk mail.
4. Pay attention to the headlines, openings, P.S.s, subheads, guarantees, transitions,
etc. (all the spots we talked about).
5. Also, be sure to read the article in the resource section about how to test your
sales letter before releasing it.
Today’s Resources:
Killer Covers – get an incredible visual representation of your product or service so
prospects immediately know what you sell!
How To Use Testing For Breakthrough Marketing Results
By Yanik Silver
Advertising is expensive. And it costs you the same amount of money to run an ad (or
mail a letter) that brings in 2 customers as one that drives in 20 customers. So that
difference is in your ad (or letter).
Let's say you've come up with what you think is a good ad (powerful headline, good
offer, sizzling copy, etc.), now you're ready to test.
Testing will help you:
1. Save yourself a bunch of money.
2. Improve any results you're currently getting.
3. Stop guessing about what works.
I'd say those are some pretty good reasons to learn all about testing and how to apply it to
your business. So before spending loads of money on your new ad you can (and should)
do a few low-cost/no-cost tests:
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The Sleep On It Test
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
First, you should let your ad sit for at least a day. Then the next day you can come back to
it with new eyes and a fresher perspective. You can find errors that weren't apparent
before.
Also, your chances of writing a good ad are significantly improved with rewriting. (I will
rewrite an ad or letter 3, 4 or 5 times before I'm done.)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Reading Aloud Test
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I don't know what it is about reading something aloud versus reading to yourself, but
you'll pick up lots and lots of insight into how good (or bad) your ad really is by reading
it aloud. All the bumps and rough spots jump out at you.
Or a variation on this is to have someone else read it you. This is even better. As they're
reading it, you should take out a copy of the ad and make notes on it. One big advantage
of this is your reader is completely impartial.
He won't stress certain phrases or words to make the meaning clearer. And if the reader is
having trouble you know that's an area to edit.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Sneaky Opinion Test
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This test is really great. Take your ad off your printer and make a xerox copy of it. Then
go around to a few people who should be in your target market and say something like,
"Take a look at this, I just found this in a magazine." Key point: Do not tell people you
wrote the ad because they'll be say how nice it is.
You're gauging their response. If they say something like "Did you write this?" or "This
is really good." What that really means is your ad stinks.
But if you start hearing "Do you know how I can get this done?" or "Do you do this?"
then you know you're on to something good and ready to spend money on your test.
Opinions are great, but the only votes that really count are the ones that are paid for. The
first thing you *don't* want to do is call every newspaper, magazine, throw-away, etc.
You need to start by testing small. And that means spending as little as possible to get
accurate results.
=-=-=-=-=-=-
Test Small
=-=-=-=-=-=-
Joe Sugarman (He sold millions of Blu-blocker sunglasses) tells how he would test all his
ads in the Southwestern edition of the Wall Street Journal. Because this was the cheapest
and smallest edition of the Journal to test.
That way he was able to read results quickly and then decide whether or not to 'roll-out'
to other editions. So how can you apply this information to your business?
Easy.
Let's say you've been running ads in your local paper. Well, usually newspapers have
zoned editions based on zip codes. So instead of paying for your ad to appear in the entire
circulation, you simply put it in one of the cheapest and most representative zones
available.
And by tracking the response (using a specific phone#, person, extension#, etc.) you can
safely predict what results you'll get once you go out to the entire circulation.
One more point: It's better to run your test ad in a daily paper instead of a monthly
magazine. Simply because you can ascertain information more quickly.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Don't Fall For Your Ad Rep's Traps
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
You cannot multiply zero. That means if there is no life in your ad -- kill it before it
drains more money and time from you.
Don't listen to your media rep's b.s. about repetition and getting discounts for multiple
insertions. Remember, these guys have no clue about how to create advertising that
works. If they did, they'd be running ads in their own magazines and making tons of
money.
Infomercial marketers realize this point. Imagine spending $100,000.00 to produce one
single 30 minute spot and then buying $400 - $1,000 in media to test it out. That's what
infomercial companies do.
They know if the phones aren't ringing after a couple of TV spots -- they're definitely not
going to ring if they throw tens of thousands of dollars in media at it, either.
Follow these tips and you'll be able to save a lot of money plus increase response. Just
test until you come up with a winner and then keep running it!
Day 5 (Friday) - Write the copy of the sales letter
Lesson Objective:
Today’s lesson objective is to continue the process of writing your sales letter.
Skills needed:
· Imagination
· Basic Word Processing
Today’s Lesson:
With your 50 headlines I want you to start identifying which ones are the most powerful.
Sometimes I have my wife look at them and tell me which one really moves her. It has to
be a first glance.
When I have my top 10 or so headlines then I move on to creating the sales letter. I use
the best headline for my headline on top of the site. My second strongest one is usually
the first sentence and then I try to use the other ones throughout the copy as subheads.
Today, we’re going to put together the rest of the sales letter and one of the easiest ways
to teach you how to do this is by looking at an analysis of my site…
My 12-Part “Power Web Copywriting” Formula
(This is how I am able to get approximately 1 out of every 32 visitors to buy my product)
For illustration of the formula - I’ve analyzed my site Instant Sales Letters.
Let’s start…
1. Create Immediate Attention with a Powerful Headline.
You can see I use a ‘prehead’ (this is the small headline above the main headline), a
headline and a subhead. All 3 of these are powerful enough to be the main headline.
Your headline’s job is immediately get your prospect’s attention and stop them dead in
their tracks. (We’ve already covered this on Day 4.)
2. Create Instant Believability with Testimonials.
One of your biggest problems on the Internet (or anywhere) is being believed. The
best way to assure people you are not a scam artist or huckster is by providing
testimonials. As you can see I like to include a testimonial as close to the top of the letter
as possible. I’ve placed these 2 testimonials from prominent Internet marketers above my
headline. This way I get people immediately believing what I say before they read my
sales letter.
3. Build Interest By Discussing a Problem, Expanding on your Headline or
Incorporating a Story.
The first part of your sales letter is critical to your success. Here I expand on the benefits
I got people excited about in the headline. They start imagining the success one sales
letter could bring them.
I also use a story to keep readership high. People love to read stories. It’s nearly
impossible not to read a good story.
4. Whet Reader’s Desire with Hot Benefits and Bullets.
Benefits are the results your prospects are looking for. If you sell a book – people don’t
want to read the book they want the ‘secrets’ and information inside.
You can incorporate benefits into your bullets (which are really “mini headlines”) so use
the same powerful words to build desire and stress benefits or how they can avoid pain.
Bullets are one of the most powerful persuaders in a sales letter. You’ll see companies
like Bottom Line or FC&A actually makes almost their entire sales letter bullets. And
that’s because bullets work!
Bullets are almost like “mini-headlines”. So the same rules apply. Bullets arouse
curiosity. I just love the way bullets compel people to find out more…
And they really drive people’s desire sky high for your product or service. One bullet that
somebody desperately wants to find out is often responsible for them buying a product or
service.
Pay attention to these bullet formulas:
· Stop ____ without expensive _______.
· Five simple ways to _________.
· How to stop ___________.
· The absolute best time to ________.
· End your ____________.
· How to avoid the 12 biggest _______ mistakes.
· How to become a _____ even if you can’t __________.
· No more __________.
· The jealously-guarded secret of ______________.
· The no-lose way to ____________.
· The truth about ___________.
· 6 facts you must know about __________.
· A simple technique for _____________.
· What can teach you about __________.
· Why almost everyone is wrong about the _____________.
· The correct way to use _______________.
· An easy 3-step system for _______________.
· How to quickly and easily create __________, using _______________.
· What you can learn from _________.
· 18 new ways to get ________________.
· New ways to get more out of ______________.
· What never to believe in any _____________.
· How to make sure you’re not overpaying for _________.
· 9 ways to slash your ________ costs.
5. Intensify Desire with Testimonials Showing Results.
Not only do I start with testimonials – but I’ll put them throughout the letter.
People love reading testimonials because they are much more powerful than anything you
could every say about yourself.
Here’s how I use testimonials to prove my points:
6. Build Value by Comparing Apples to Oranges or ROI.
Establish Why Price is Really a Great Value.
In order to prove that your product or service is a great value you need to show it. I do
this by comparing my letter templates to having to pay me or another copywriter to write
them for you. This way I can prove it’s a great value.
7. Explain Reason-Why.
Explaining to people the reason why you are doing something is one of the most
powerful persuaders you could ever incorporate into your sales letters. I have an entire
article about it that you can read here:
http://instantsalesletters.com/articles/trigger.html
Take a look at how I justify such a great value for buyers in this paragraph:
8. Create ‘Greed’ Desire or ‘Gotta Have It’ Mentality with Free Bonuses.
I like to pile on the bonuses and really get people excited.
Sometimes they buy the main product just because of the bonuses. Do I care? Nope!
Your bonuses should be so good you could sell them on their own.
You can see here the bonuses are worth nearly triple what they’ll pay for the Instant Sales
Letter templates.
That’s what you want! You want people to really get excited about the incredible deal
they’re getting!
9. Unconditional Guarantee to Alleviate Fears (even better-than-risk-free
guarantee).
The more risk-free you can make it for people to take action the better.
There’s no need to worry about offering a strong guarantee if you’ve got a good product.
Here’s how I present it in my letter:
10. Demand Immediate Action Using Scarcity or Time Deadline Stress What
They’ll Lose if They Delay.
Nobody likes to make a decision. That’s why you have to help them along by
incorporating a time deadline and reminding them of what they’ll miss out on if they
don’t take action. Sometimes it can be as easy as this one paragraph:
11. Make it Absolutely Clear What to Do Next.
Here’s where a lot of sales letters wimp out. Don’t make people guess what you want
them to do. Tell them “click here” to get started right away.
12. Power P.S.
I will give prospects another chance to get additional information in the P.S. of the letter.
This link would take them to a page that answers even more questions about the
templates. Then the P.P.S. summarizes the benefits and what they’ll get if they order
now!
There you have it! Just put these 12 elements to work in your sales letter
and you’re all set.
Today’s Assignment:
1. Get the major elements of your sales letter together:
2. Come up with your irresistible offer (see bonus article at the end of this section)
3. Get together your testimonials. If you don’t have any yet – ask people to review
your product/service and get back to you. Ask existing customers if you can use
their comments.
4. Create a list of 20 bullets points for your product or service highlighting benefits.
A simple way to do this is to take every feature and come up with several benefits
for it. Remember a benefit is something your product does (result it produces) for
the customer.
5. Think of a believable and truthful ‘reason why’ you are making this offer.
6. Bonuses. Think of several high perceived but low-cost bonuses. Information
products like reports or ebooks are perfect for this.
7. Craft your guarantee. Try to be as liberal as possible, a lifetime guarantee sure
would sell more than a 30-day guarantee.
Special Notice: Inside the “show-and-tell” 33 Days to
Online Profits Video CD-roms you can see an actual
sales letter from start to finish. You’ll see all the different
editing processes and more. You just pop the CDs into
your computer and watch as right before your eyes each step is
brought to life. Check it out here
HOW TO CREATE POWERFUL OFFERS THAT DRIVE YOUR SALES THROUGH
THE ROOF
By Yanik Silver
What does a mafia boss know about marketing?
Lots. Read on to find out...
Do you remember in the movie "The Godfather" when Don Corleone says, "I’m gonna
make him an offer he can’t refuse"?
And it’s this simple concept that’s the backbone of any successful sales proposition you
make. (However if I were you, I’d probably leave out the threats of violence in your sales
piece.)
From now on, your job is to create such powerful offers that anyone reading it would say
to themselves, "My goodness, I’d have to be a complete idiot not to take them up on this
deal!"
And creating a powerful offer like this is easier than you think.
Let me share with you one of the most compelling offers I’ve seen. It took a dying hotel
on the wrong side of the Vegas 'strip', where you had to watch your wallet at every turn,
and transformed it into a super moneymaker.
This is from a very successful ad that used to run for Bob Stupak's Vegas World hotel.
Listen to this deal and see if you wouldn't act on this even if you were just an occasional
gambler:
"Act now, to receive a virtually free Las Vegas vacation. For $198 per person or $396 per
couple I will:
1) Put you up in a luxurious mini suite in an exciting Las Vegas hotel right on the famous
strip.
2) I will give you free tickets to a show with name entertainers.
3) I will put a chilled bottle of champagne in your room for free.
4) I'll let you drink as much as want for free, whether you're at the gaming tables, playing
slots or in one of the lounges.
5) I'll hand you $1,000 of my money to gamble with for free.
6) I'll let you keep all your winnings.
7) I'll guarantee you'll win a color TV, VCR or a faux diamond ring.
Obviously I'm not going to give this incredible deal to everybody in the whole world.
There can only be (small number) of these vacation packages available. First come, first
served."
If that's not an irresistible offer, I don't what is. The closer you can get to something like
this, the more customers you’ll have falling all over themselves to give you their money.
Does this give you a few ideas?
========================
Using The Bonus Pile On
========================
Vegas World’s offer uses a concept I call "Bonus Pile On". And the way it works is to
keep piling on bonus after bonus until finally you have to say "no mas" and whip out
your charge card.
It was the same thing with the famous Ginsu knife commercials a few years back. They
used this technique perfectly to sell millions of dollars of cutlery. The announcer would
say "And if you act now you’ll also get..." and then about 15 different knives and kitchen
gadgets would pop up on the screen.
It made you think about how much value you were getting for such a little price. That’s
the power of the "bonus pile on".
So what’s the best way to start using this in your business? Well, one of the best ways I
know is using paper and ink. You can give away a series of valuable reports with any
purchase. What’s more, you could even make this information available as a download
from your website so you’d have zero distribution cost.
Or you could make deals with other businesses where they’d let you give away a product
or service from them to your customers. If you really use your imagination here you’ll
come up with lots of ways to create a "bonus pile on".
===============================
Make Prospects Take Action Now!
===============================
There’s no doubt about it - deep down, everyone of us is a lazy procrastinator. That’s
why you need some kind of deadline or scarcity factor to make prospects take action
now. If your prospects believe an offer is going to be around forever, there’s no reason to
take action.
That’s the reason deadlines work so well. In one of my businesses, I’ll stamp a red
deadline on the order form for the last day prospects get over $2,000.00 in free bonuses.
And believe me, it’s not unusual to get people ordering right on the very last day of the
deadline just because of this stamp.
=======================
100% No-Risk Guarantee
=======================
Finally, the last component of a powerful offer is to make your deal as risk-free as
possible. Nobody wants to make a mistake and be stuck with something that doesn’t
deliver as promised. That’s why you should make every effort to lift the risk from the
prospect and place it squarely on your shoulders. Make a bold guarantee and make it for
as long as possible. If you have a quality product, you shouldn’t worry because most
often return rates will drop the longer you extend guarantees for.
Another strategy to try is offering a 30-day "hold-your-check or charge slip" trial. That
means people will send you checks postdated 30 days out or you won’t charge their credit
cards for 30 days. Joe Karbo used this to sell tens of thousands of copies of his book "The
Lazy Man’s Ways to Riches".
Now you have all the keys to creating your own irresistible offer and watching your sales
soar. Just keep adding value and more bonuses until you come up with an offer than
makes your prospect feel guilty for not ordering.
Today’s lesson objective is to continue the process of writing your sales letter.
Skills needed:
· Imagination
· Basic Word Processing
Today’s Lesson:
With your 50 headlines I want you to start identifying which ones are the most powerful.
Sometimes I have my wife look at them and tell me which one really moves her. It has to
be a first glance.
When I have my top 10 or so headlines then I move on to creating the sales letter. I use
the best headline for my headline on top of the site. My second strongest one is usually
the first sentence and then I try to use the other ones throughout the copy as subheads.
Today, we’re going to put together the rest of the sales letter and one of the easiest ways
to teach you how to do this is by looking at an analysis of my site…
My 12-Part “Power Web Copywriting” Formula
(This is how I am able to get approximately 1 out of every 32 visitors to buy my product)
For illustration of the formula - I’ve analyzed my site Instant Sales Letters.
Let’s start…
1. Create Immediate Attention with a Powerful Headline.
You can see I use a ‘prehead’ (this is the small headline above the main headline), a
headline and a subhead. All 3 of these are powerful enough to be the main headline.
Your headline’s job is immediately get your prospect’s attention and stop them dead in
their tracks. (We’ve already covered this on Day 4.)
2. Create Instant Believability with Testimonials.
One of your biggest problems on the Internet (or anywhere) is being believed. The
best way to assure people you are not a scam artist or huckster is by providing
testimonials. As you can see I like to include a testimonial as close to the top of the letter
as possible. I’ve placed these 2 testimonials from prominent Internet marketers above my
headline. This way I get people immediately believing what I say before they read my
sales letter.
3. Build Interest By Discussing a Problem, Expanding on your Headline or
Incorporating a Story.
The first part of your sales letter is critical to your success. Here I expand on the benefits
I got people excited about in the headline. They start imagining the success one sales
letter could bring them.
I also use a story to keep readership high. People love to read stories. It’s nearly
impossible not to read a good story.
4. Whet Reader’s Desire with Hot Benefits and Bullets.
Benefits are the results your prospects are looking for. If you sell a book – people don’t
want to read the book they want the ‘secrets’ and information inside.
You can incorporate benefits into your bullets (which are really “mini headlines”) so use
the same powerful words to build desire and stress benefits or how they can avoid pain.
Bullets are one of the most powerful persuaders in a sales letter. You’ll see companies
like Bottom Line or FC&A actually makes almost their entire sales letter bullets. And
that’s because bullets work!
Bullets are almost like “mini-headlines”. So the same rules apply. Bullets arouse
curiosity. I just love the way bullets compel people to find out more…
And they really drive people’s desire sky high for your product or service. One bullet that
somebody desperately wants to find out is often responsible for them buying a product or
service.
Pay attention to these bullet formulas:
· Stop ____ without expensive _______.
· Five simple ways to _________.
· How to stop ___________.
· The absolute best time to ________.
· End your ____________.
· How to avoid the 12 biggest _______ mistakes.
· How to become a _____ even if you can’t __________.
· No more __________.
· The jealously-guarded secret of ______________.
· The no-lose way to ____________.
· The truth about ___________.
· 6 facts you must know about __________.
· A simple technique for _____________.
· What
· Why almost everyone is wrong about the _____________.
· The correct way to use _______________.
· An easy 3-step system for _______________.
· How to quickly and easily create __________, using _______________.
· What you can learn from _________.
· 18 new ways to get ________________.
· New ways to get more out of ______________.
· What never to believe in any _____________.
· How to make sure you’re not overpaying for _________.
· 9 ways to slash your ________ costs.
5. Intensify Desire with Testimonials Showing Results.
Not only do I start with testimonials – but I’ll put them throughout the letter.
People love reading testimonials because they are much more powerful than anything you
could every say about yourself.
Here’s how I use testimonials to prove my points:
6. Build Value by Comparing Apples to Oranges or ROI.
Establish Why Price is Really a Great Value.
In order to prove that your product or service is a great value you need to show it. I do
this by comparing my letter templates to having to pay me or another copywriter to write
them for you. This way I can prove it’s a great value.
7. Explain Reason-Why.
Explaining to people the reason why you are doing something is one of the most
powerful persuaders you could ever incorporate into your sales letters. I have an entire
article about it that you can read here:
http://instantsalesletters.com/articles/trigger.html
Take a look at how I justify such a great value for buyers in this paragraph:
8. Create ‘Greed’ Desire or ‘Gotta Have It’ Mentality with Free Bonuses.
I like to pile on the bonuses and really get people excited.
Sometimes they buy the main product just because of the bonuses. Do I care? Nope!
Your bonuses should be so good you could sell them on their own.
You can see here the bonuses are worth nearly triple what they’ll pay for the Instant Sales
Letter templates.
That’s what you want! You want people to really get excited about the incredible deal
they’re getting!
9. Unconditional Guarantee to Alleviate Fears (even better-than-risk-free
guarantee).
The more risk-free you can make it for people to take action the better.
There’s no need to worry about offering a strong guarantee if you’ve got a good product.
Here’s how I present it in my letter:
10. Demand Immediate Action Using Scarcity or Time Deadline Stress What
They’ll Lose if They Delay.
Nobody likes to make a decision. That’s why you have to help them along by
incorporating a time deadline and reminding them of what they’ll miss out on if they
don’t take action. Sometimes it can be as easy as this one paragraph:
11. Make it Absolutely Clear What to Do Next.
Here’s where a lot of sales letters wimp out. Don’t make people guess what you want
them to do. Tell them “click here” to get started right away.
12. Power P.S.
I will give prospects another chance to get additional information in the P.S. of the letter.
This link would take them to a page that answers even more questions about the
templates. Then the P.P.S. summarizes the benefits and what they’ll get if they order
now!
There you have it! Just put these 12 elements to work in your sales letter
and you’re all set.
Today’s Assignment:
1. Get the major elements of your sales letter together:
2. Come up with your irresistible offer (see bonus article at the end of this section)
3. Get together your testimonials. If you don’t have any yet – ask people to review
your product/service and get back to you. Ask existing customers if you can use
their comments.
4. Create a list of 20 bullets points for your product or service highlighting benefits.
A simple way to do this is to take every feature and come up with several benefits
for it. Remember a benefit is something your product does (result it produces) for
the customer.
5. Think of a believable and truthful ‘reason why’ you are making this offer.
6. Bonuses. Think of several high perceived but low-cost bonuses. Information
products like reports or ebooks are perfect for this.
7. Craft your guarantee. Try to be as liberal as possible, a lifetime guarantee sure
would sell more than a 30-day guarantee.
Special Notice: Inside the “show-and-tell” 33 Days to
Online Profits Video CD-roms you can see an actual
sales letter from start to finish. You’ll see all the different
editing processes and more. You just pop the CDs into
your computer and watch as right before your eyes each step is
brought to life. Check it out here
HOW TO CREATE POWERFUL OFFERS THAT DRIVE YOUR SALES THROUGH
THE ROOF
By Yanik Silver
What does a mafia boss know about marketing?
Lots. Read on to find out...
Do you remember in the movie "The Godfather" when Don Corleone says, "I’m gonna
make him an offer he can’t refuse"?
And it’s this simple concept that’s the backbone of any successful sales proposition you
make. (However if I were you, I’d probably leave out the threats of violence in your sales
piece.)
From now on, your job is to create such powerful offers that anyone reading it would say
to themselves, "My goodness, I’d have to be a complete idiot not to take them up on this
deal!"
And creating a powerful offer like this is easier than you think.
Let me share with you one of the most compelling offers I’ve seen. It took a dying hotel
on the wrong side of the Vegas 'strip', where you had to watch your wallet at every turn,
and transformed it into a super moneymaker.
This is from a very successful ad that used to run for Bob Stupak's Vegas World hotel.
Listen to this deal and see if you wouldn't act on this even if you were just an occasional
gambler:
"Act now, to receive a virtually free Las Vegas vacation. For $198 per person or $396 per
couple I will:
1) Put you up in a luxurious mini suite in an exciting Las Vegas hotel right on the famous
strip.
2) I will give you free tickets to a show with name entertainers.
3) I will put a chilled bottle of champagne in your room for free.
4) I'll let you drink as much as want for free, whether you're at the gaming tables, playing
slots or in one of the lounges.
5) I'll hand you $1,000 of my money to gamble with for free.
6) I'll let you keep all your winnings.
7) I'll guarantee you'll win a color TV, VCR or a faux diamond ring.
Obviously I'm not going to give this incredible deal to everybody in the whole world.
There can only be (small number) of these vacation packages available. First come, first
served."
If that's not an irresistible offer, I don't what is. The closer you can get to something like
this, the more customers you’ll have falling all over themselves to give you their money.
Does this give you a few ideas?
========================
Using The Bonus Pile On
========================
Vegas World’s offer uses a concept I call "Bonus Pile On". And the way it works is to
keep piling on bonus after bonus until finally you have to say "no mas" and whip out
your charge card.
It was the same thing with the famous Ginsu knife commercials a few years back. They
used this technique perfectly to sell millions of dollars of cutlery. The announcer would
say "And if you act now you’ll also get..." and then about 15 different knives and kitchen
gadgets would pop up on the screen.
It made you think about how much value you were getting for such a little price. That’s
the power of the "bonus pile on".
So what’s the best way to start using this in your business? Well, one of the best ways I
know is using paper and ink. You can give away a series of valuable reports with any
purchase. What’s more, you could even make this information available as a download
from your website so you’d have zero distribution cost.
Or you could make deals with other businesses where they’d let you give away a product
or service from them to your customers. If you really use your imagination here you’ll
come up with lots of ways to create a "bonus pile on".
===============================
Make Prospects Take Action Now!
===============================
There’s no doubt about it - deep down, everyone of us is a lazy procrastinator. That’s
why you need some kind of deadline or scarcity factor to make prospects take action
now. If your prospects believe an offer is going to be around forever, there’s no reason to
take action.
That’s the reason deadlines work so well. In one of my businesses, I’ll stamp a red
deadline on the order form for the last day prospects get over $2,000.00 in free bonuses.
And believe me, it’s not unusual to get people ordering right on the very last day of the
deadline just because of this stamp.
=======================
100% No-Risk Guarantee
=======================
Finally, the last component of a powerful offer is to make your deal as risk-free as
possible. Nobody wants to make a mistake and be stuck with something that doesn’t
deliver as promised. That’s why you should make every effort to lift the risk from the
prospect and place it squarely on your shoulders. Make a bold guarantee and make it for
as long as possible. If you have a quality product, you shouldn’t worry because most
often return rates will drop the longer you extend guarantees for.
Another strategy to try is offering a 30-day "hold-your-check or charge slip" trial. That
means people will send you checks postdated 30 days out or you won’t charge their credit
cards for 30 days. Joe Karbo used this to sell tens of thousands of copies of his book "The
Lazy Man’s Ways to Riches".
Now you have all the keys to creating your own irresistible offer and watching your sales
soar. Just keep adding value and more bonuses until you come up with an offer than
makes your prospect feel guilty for not ordering.
Day 2 (Tuesday) - Physically setting up shop online.
Lesson Objective:
To set up the necessary physical elements for operating a profitable online business.
Skills Needed:
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Email
· Basic HTML
· Basic FTP
· Basic Word Processing
Today’s Lesson:
NOTE: We have a very busy day ahead of us -- so let’s not waste any time.
In today’s lesson you will:
· Register your domain name.
· Set up a hosting account for your website.
o Make sure you have a website statistics program set up so you can
measure your traffic and other “critical numbers”.
· Purchase an “Auto-responder” automatic email follow-up tool.
· Sign up for a credit card merchant account or find an alternative means to accept
online credit card payments from customers.
· Unless you will sell only one or two items delivered electronically, you will need
a shopping cart.
· Finally, you will need to set up an affiliate program so you can solicit other
website owners to sell your product or service in exchange for a commission.
Part 1 – Registering Your Domain Name
Registering a domain name has gotten very easy over the last few years.
When I bought my first domain about 4 years ago, it cost $70 to register a domain and
most hosting services tacked another $25 to $50 on top of that!
The process of registering a domain is simply a matter of knowing the name you want to
register (remember all the research we did yesterday), filling out an online form and
paying with your credit card.
In fact, most hosting services now make it even easier by allowing you to register your
domain name as part of the hosting sign up process.
You register your domain name with a “registrar” who then keeps your record so when
people type in your domain name they find your site.
You typically buy your registration for 1-10 years depending on the registrar and how
much you want to pay up front for the domain.
One CRITICAL note about your domain name and Yahoo! – Remember yesterday
when we looked at Yahoo and saw they list their sites by the company name?
Well one of the ways that Yahoo checks to see if that really is your company name (you
didn’t really expect they would just believe your business started with an “!” symbol did
you?) is by going to the registrar of your domain name to see who has registered it –
typically called the “registrant”.
Example: Let’s keep going with the antique cars.
I decided to name my domain and my business 1StopAntiqueCarSales.com.
When I register that domain I will put 1Stop Antique Car Sales as the name of the
business in the registrant section of the domain sign up.
That way, if the Yahoo category editor does check the domain name registrar, they will
see that the name of the business matches the domain name.
Yahoo explains all of this to you and I highly suggest you click here for more
information: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/
One more Tip: Based on information obtained from our own results and advice from
recognized experts, right now, it really appears optional whether or not you should
separate your domain name’s keywords with a hyphen (-) in order to increase the chances
of scoring well. You can either do it or not… it doesn’t appear to make any difference,
though it may be useful in order to get a domain that works if the first one you want is
already taken.
Based on this information, the following domain names would work for the above
example:
1StopAntiqueCarSales.com
1StopAntique-CarSales.com
1Stop-AntiqueCar-Sales.com
1Stop-Antique-Car-Sales.com
So now it’s time to register your domain name.
Here are some domain name registrars we know provide reliable service at a fair price.
Sign up for your domain name now.
Domain Registration Services
Dotster – offers excellent domain name registration services at discount prices!
Domains Bot – Search for live expired, expiring soon and “on hold” domains.
Part 2 – Setting up a web hosting service
When I launched my first website way back in the “dark ages” of 1997 I was paying
almost $150 a month in hosting and data transfer charges.
That’s right – a hundred and fifty bucks a month!
My web host watched how many files I uploaded like a hawk and took fiendish glee in
sending me large invoices every single month.
Fortunately all that has changed for the better!
Many hosting services don’t charge “an arm and a leg” for hosting your site.
You can host your site for $10-50 per month depending on how much space you need and
how much bandwidth (data transfer) you plan to use.
Here are some important things to consider when you evaluate any hosting service:
Server space
You will need enough server space to host your site. Most basic websites only need about
one to two megabytes of web space for the entire site.
However, make sure you get at least 5 megabytes of space so you can expand without
worry.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the amount of data transfer you get with the account.
Most hosting services now talk in terms of “gigabytes”. A gigabyte is 1000 megabytes of
data transfer.
Here’s what this means in real people terms:
Bandwidth is the amount of data transferred to visitors as they view your web site.
Your web hosting service includes a certain amount of data traffic with your package,
and fact is most web sites use far less than the allotted amount.
For example, let’s say you have a web page 40 kilobytes in size (including graphics)
going over the net.
Your hosting account allows you a 4000 MB (4 gigabyte).
This allowance equates to about 100,000 visitors downloading that particular page!!
This sounds like a lot – but let’s take it one step further.
Most hosting services have in their fine print a restriction on how much bandwidth you
can use at any time.
Let’s say you have an ebook that is 500kb in size and 10 people tried to download it at
the same time… that would most likely cause a “bargain” hosting company’s server to
“throttle” your bandwidth.
This means your service will slow way down during that peak usage period.
The moral of the story – a “bargain” doesn’t always mean a bargain.
If you plan to sell a lot of ebooks or other electronic products, make sure the hosting
company you hire can handle the load and is flexible enough not to shut you down right
in the middle of a peak usage period.
CGI scripts
The hosting company you hire must let you run cgi or perl scripts on your account. Most
do, but make sure before you sign up.
Cgi scripts run many of the interactive elements on your website, including: contact
forms, affiliate programs, shopping carts, click tracking, and more.
Website “stats”
Many hosting services provide you with a website statistics (stats) program. Make it
provides you with the following information:
· Unique Visitors – how many individual people have come to your website within
a specific period of time.
· Referrers – where do your website visitors come from? If they come from a
search engine, what keywords are they using to find your site? Any worthwhile
stats program includes this information.
· Page views – total page views gives you snapshot of the overall activity on your
website.
One note about “hits” – the term “hits” gets thrown around pretty loosely online and
nobody knows exactly what it means.
“My website gets a lot of hits.” is about the most useless statement you could make!
Hits can entail everything from page views to individual files loading on your site. One
page could be responsible for 10 “hits”!
Your main concern in monitoring your website stats is how many unique visitors are
coming to your site. In other words - How many people are showing up who can buy
from you!
Sign up for your hosting account now!
“Bargain” Hosting: Under $10 a month
Your Site - Offers a comprehensive hosting service for $5 a month.
Mid-Level Hosting
All Net Web Design And Hosting – Offers a special deal to “33 Days” purchasers – well
worth checking out. Personalized service and very responsive.
More “Robust” Hosting: $25 a month
Host 4 Profit – Offers a high quality, high speed hosting service at an incredible
price! Includes:
~ 300 MB of web space
~ 10 GB of Data transfer (That’s a LOT!)
~ Unlimited autoresponders
~ Website stats
~ NOTE: Each additional hosting account you set up is only
$5 a month… it’s a great deal!
If your hosting service doesn’t provide you with a good stats program then you will need
to set one up.
Here are some options for setting up a stats program on your website.
Web Trends Live - Very comprehensive website stats program – monthly fee.
A W Stats – basic online stats service – free!
With the advent of really inexpensive and reliable web hosting nobody has a valid excuse
for not getting their own website to promote their product, ebook or business.
Part 3 – Selecting and using an Autoresponder automatic follow up tool
What The Heck is an Email Autoresponder?
Email autoresponders work like a fax-on-demand system.
Maybe you’ve seen the systems where you call from your fax machine and dial a certain
code and you’ll get back a document in your fax machine?
Well, an email autoresponder works the same way.
If you send an email to an autoresponder address you’ll get back a prewritten message.
Using A Sequential Email Autoresponder in your business
Until just recently, you could only do a one-time autoresponder with one message coming
back.
But now you can set up a whole sequence of autoresponder messages going out on any
day you choose.
For example:
· Message #1 might go out immediately
· Message #2 goes out 2 days later
· Message #3 goes out on day 5
· Day 8 comes another message, etc, etc.
Do you see the real beauty of this whole thing yet?
The best part about it - everything gets done automatically for you because it’s triggered
when a prospect submits their email address.
So that means you can simply set up your system once and it keeps working over and
over again like a tireless money-making robot making sure no prospect ever slips through
the cracks.
Because the vast majority of your customers WILL NOT buy on the first visit to your
site, it’s critical that you have an automated way to follow up with them several times to
entice them back to your site to make a purchase.
Sequential autoresponders give you that *automated* follow up without the tedious
headache of having to do it yourself manually.
Tom Kulzer of smart autoresponder provider AWeber Systems once wrote:
"Consistent follow-up gets results."
“Turbo-charge” your autoresponder with these “TOP 5” Tips:
1. Make “time sensitive” offers in your email follow up. Get your prospects to feel a
sense of urgency that “this offer won’t last forever”.
2. Reinforce that urgency with your follow up mailings. One technique is to have a
“countdown” of days remaining as each email arrives.
3. Build extra incentives into each follow up mailing until the prospect just “can’t
take it anymore” and has to buy from you. These “Bonuses” or incentives could
include:
a. Free Reports
b. Free ebooks
c. Freeware programs
d. Mini-Courses delivered via email
4. When using bonuses – don’t forget to remove clients from that particular
autoresponder follow up as they become a client! You want to avoid any
confusion or extra, unnecessary emails to that new client.
5. Include a “survey” as part of your autoresponder sequence. Use feedback from
your subscribers to help make your autoresponder results even better.
a. What do they like about your autoresponder?
b. What do they hate about it?
c. What other information do they want?
Suggestions for Putting Your Autoresponder To Work
Here are a few of the best ways to put a series of autoresponders to work for your site:
1. Follow up with prospects who download an excerpt from your product or sign-up
for a trial service.
- Encourage them to come back to your site for more information or to make their
first (or repeat) purchase.
2. Multi-part training courses.
- Teach people about a single part of the overall “picture” you are trying to sell
them. Demonstrate your knowledge by giving them something of value and you
will get value in return (their money).
A good example is giving away the first chapter of your ebook free to entice
people to buy the whole thing.
This technique is actually a universal principal - Tell people what they need to
do and then sell them how to do it.
3. Persuading hesitant prospects to become ecstatic buyers.
- Gently remind visitors why they came to your site in the first place and then give
them reasons to return
4. Deliver special reports that prove your company’s worth.
- You already probably have (or can gain access to) information or articles that
would make an excellent “Special Report” that proves you are an expert in your
field.
5. Provide an “evergreen” newsletter to prospects to maintain contact.
- Take elements of your business that never change and turn them into a timeless
newsletter. This means you teach people principles that never go out of date or
style.
6. Automatically follow-up with buyers to sell them even more and make sure they
stay happy!
- It’s much easier to sell an existing customer than it is to find a new one! Don’t
make the mistake of letting a one-time customer stay a one-time customer. Follow
up with your buyers to make sure they have what they need and always look for
new products you can sell them based on their interests.
Just think about how nice it will be to automatically and consistently follow up with
customers to increase sales!
Here is a list of autoresponders we feel comfortable recommending to you.
Research these companies and sign up for your own sequential autoresponder
system today.
A Weber – Highly Recommended! Very reliable autoresponder system used by many
of the web’s top marketers.
Get Response – Recommended! This is the system we use (along with a lot of other top
online marketers). Lots of great features, easy to use, reliable – what else can you say?
This is a great tool that will help you make money!
Auto Response Plus – A stand alone autoresponder system that eliminates the need to
pay monthly fees (other than website hosting). Does require some professional help to set
up on your hosting service but may be worth a serious look.
1 Shopping Cart – Fully integrated system of shopping cart, autoresponder, ad tracker,
credit card processor and more!
Part 4 – Merchant Accounts
A merchant account can represent one of the largest expenses in setting up your online
business.
But you can accept credit cards online without “breaking the bank”.
Since over 90% of all transactions on the Internet involve using a credit card, your
business will ultimately fail if you don’t allow your online customers to use “plastic”.
The problem for most small businesses and “micro-preneurs” involves the (sometimes)
high cost of setting up and maintaining a credit card merchant account.
Fortunately, a few companies have responded to this problem with unique solutions
enabling online merchants to accept credit cards without going broke in the process.
One in particular may be of special interest if you are selling information products such
as ebooks or software your customers download directly from the Internet…
ClickBank
For a $50 one-time fee ClickBank enables online ebook, software and other electronically
delivered product and service sellers to not only accept credit cards, but provide instant
delivery as well.
ClickBank allows any merchant to accept virtually every major credit card in the world.
The online merchant simply adds a purchase link to their site, the customer clicks the
link, fills in their payment information and the credit card gets authorized on the spot.
Once the card gets approved, ClickBank redirects the buyer to a page on the merchant’s
site that enables them to download the ebook, software, or other product they have just
purchased.
The buyer gets an email receipt from ClickBank with the details of the transaction.
The seller also gets an email from ClickBank letting them know a transaction has taken
place along with the buyer’s name, email address, state, and country.
ClickBank mails checks every two weeks for sales made through your account, minus a
$1 fee and 7.5% of each transaction.
ClickBank also charges a $2.50 fee for each check they send out, but sellers can pick the
minimum amount they want to make before a check gets issued.
ClickBank also makes it easy to recruit and pay others to help sell your products through
your own affiliate program.
ClickBank provides the tools for setting up affiliate links, tracking sales and takes care of
paying your affiliates every two weeks.
Overall ClickBank represents and excellent alternative for anyone who wants to test their
hand at selling online information without spending hundreds of dollars on credit card
processing for a product that may or may not sell.
ClickBank does, however, have some drawbacks:
1. They take a relatively hefty chunk out of your pocket compared to more
traditional credit card merchant accounts.
2. You have to wait about a month to get paid on your transactions because of the
way their accounting system is set up.
3. You cannot sell anything but electronic products and services – no physically
delivered products allowed.
4. The ClickBank system is “bare-bones” -- with no built-in autoresponders or
follow-up mechanisms of any kind. You get the purchaser’s name and email
address and that’s about all.
If you will sell anything other than electronic products or services, or if you want
something more robust than the ClickBank system, then you’ll need to get a more
traditional merchant account.
Here are some things to consider when looking at a merchant account and comparing
providers.
· Do they allow Internet sales? Many credit card processors still don’t allow
merchants to process Internet sales -- so you’re wasting your time trying to sign
up with them.
· How much do they charge up front in application fees? Many companies reselling
credit card services charge outrageous application fees -- so make sure you
compare costs!
· What monthly minimum charges apply? Whether you sell anything or not the
processing company will charge you a monthly fee.
· How long must you commit to their service? Some services make you sign up for
3 or 4 years.
· Do you have to buy any equipment? Equipment is another profit center for credit
card processing companies, especially the ones that make you lease software
programs or “terminals” for $50 a month.
· Do you get a “virtual terminal” where you can manually process transactions you
get over the phone or through the mail? You don’t want to have to buy expensive
equipment used to “swipe” cards.,
· How much do they charge as a “real-time” gateway fee?
o NOTE: A real-time gateway allows you to tie your credit card processing
in with your delivery system / shopping cart.
o This enables you to process people’s credit cards in “real-time” online…
without you having to input the numbers or swipe a card through a
machine.
o Also, you must make sure that the credit card processor you choose works
with the delivery system / shopping cart you choose.
Here’s a list of Merchant Account Providers you should check out. Many of them offer
additional services that can save you a lot of time and money.
Check out these credit card processing companies now to compare services
and pricing.
ClickBank – very good service for those just starting out selling information and
electronic products online.
Electronic Transfer – Internet-friendly credit card processing company. Can help even
if you have been declined elsewhere.
Marketer’s Choice Credit Cards – Integrates real time credit card processing and
shopping cart along with many additional features.
Part 5 – Setting up a shopping cart
Setting up shop on the Internet involves more than slapping together a website and
submitting your pages to the search engines.
Statistics tell us that over half of all cyber-shoppers never complete the purchase cycle
started in online shopping carts.
The shopping cart that displays your wares in cyberspace can mean the difference
between success and failure as consumers take that leap of faith and submit their credit
card information over the web.
All shopping cart software should enable consumers to select items and send payment
information over the Internet; however, individual cart packages vary significantly
between providers.
Some shopping carts require the merchant to obtain their own secure server, while others
allow the shop owner to fill out a form through their web browser, upload product
pictures, and set up a functional store in a matter of minutes.
Shopping cart solutions range from software packages costing thousands of dollars in up-
front and monthly charges to free online carts that capture credit card payments and even
send e-mail notification each time a new order arrives.
For most new merchants, credit card payment and processing create the most confusion
regarding shopping carts.
Processing orders online not only requires a secure shopping cart, but a merchant account
with a bank or credit card processing company as well.
The secure shopping cart enables the shop owner to accept payment information for
goods and services purchased online while the merchant account and real time payment
gateway enables them to actually process the customers’ payment.
Beyond the basic “secure-server” and “check out” features, many shopping carts provide
other services, including:
· payment processing
· sophisticated accounting and financial reporting
· customer tracking
· order tracking
· inventory control
· and much more!
Surprisingly, any business with less than a dozen items for sale will find a number of
low-cost shopping carts (some with very sophisticated capabilities) available on the web.
Unless you plan to take a course in website programming, a shopping cart created and
maintained through a web browser-based interface represents the best solution for the
vast majority for businesses large or small.
By logging onto the Internet, you can set up a store, download orders, and perform many
accounting and reporting functions right in the web browser.
Any carts requiring significant programming, software installation and extensive HTML
knowledge rarely warrant the extra effort.
Get excited! Here are some carts known for their user-friendly setup and powerful,
reliable features.
Check out these shopping carts, make a decision as to which one will meet your
needs, sign up for it.
ClickBank – excellent and simple way to go if you only have a handful of information
“e” only products to sell.
Marketer’s Choice Shopping Cart – Integrates real time credit card processing and
shopping cart along with many additional features.
Part 6 - Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs (also known as reseller programs, associate programs, etc.) are an
opportunity for you to get dozens, hundreds, even thousands of web sites all driving
traffic to your site and making sales for you…
And the best part is you don’t pay until they make the sale!
Amazon.com was one of the first companies to build an affiliate program and right now
they’ve got approximately 150,000 affiliates working for them, just sending them visitors
and customers. Their affiliates get paid every time someone clicks on their link and buys
a book.
There are two ways you can start your own affiliate program.
The first way is to have a service bureau take care of nearly everything for you.
They’ll handle recruiting (to an extent) and administrative functions like sending out
checks, tracking, reporting, etc. But normally, you’ll pay a much higher percentage than
if you did it yourself (which is the second way)
A good example of a service bureau is Commission Junction.
If you don’t think you can handle some of the administrative tasks of running a program
in-house then you should consider outsourcing.
Here is a description of the “ideal” affiliate program.
Keep in mind however, that this is the “sports car” model and your budget may require
you to start small and build.
Important Features Your Affiliate Software Should Contain:
· Real time stats for affiliates to check their sales and their commissions without
any interaction from you.
· Ability to export affiliate information into files for easy payment and
administrative work… unless you have hired a bureau to do it for you.
· The ability to credit affiliates for the sale months or even years later if their
referred visitor buys
· Can it handle a 2-Tier program? This means your affiliate program pays your
affiliates not only on their sales, but on the sales of affiliates they introduce to
you.
· Can it work on multiple web sites? Can you use the same affiliate program for
different products you sell or do you have to buy a new license every time you
start a new business or site?
· Can you pay different commissions to different affiliates? You’ll want to reward
your “heavy hitters” with higher commissions and you need to have that
flexibility on a case-by-case basis.
· How simple is it to get software support? Do you have a 1-800 number to call or
do you have to rely solely on the “help” file?
· Is installation and integration provided? Do you have to install it yourself, and if
so – how hard is it?
· Ability to email all affiliates announcements. You should have the ability to send
broadcast and individual announcements to your affiliates to motivate, retain and
get them going.
· Ability to automatically add affiliates and give referral ID#s. Your system must
allow affiliates to “serve themselves” in the sign-up process. You won’t have time
to sign up each individual once your business gets going.
· Email notification of sales for affiliates. Nothing motivates an affiliate more than
receiving an email notification they’ve made a sale and commission check is
coming!
· Full integration with your shopping cart/order processing system. You shouldn’t
manually track sales against your cart transactions and affiliate roster. What a
nightmare! Your processing should automatically track product sales / returns and
automatically adjust your affiliate commissions accordingly.
Other notes and tips on Affiliate Programs:
- Give your affiliates proven tools they can use to sell your products, including:
o Proven Sales Letters that sell really well;
o Endorsement letters they can send to their email lists;
o Banners they can put on their sites;
o Ezine articles they can run;
o Ezine ads that pull buyers.
- Don’t ask your affiliates to do anything you haven’t already done yourself when it
comes to running ads, using website copy or emailing their existing customers.
Nothing destroys your affiliate network faster than telling affiliates something
will work… and they find out it doesn’t!
- Stay in touch with your affiliates… they will sell the products freshest in their
minds.
- Pay your affiliates well and give them high commissions – the higher the better
because, after all is said and done, they’re doing it for the money!
- Never take anything away. Once you offer affiliates something you can’t take it
back… this includes reducing commissions or not paying on time.
If you know you will need an affiliate program, here are some excellent packages
to check out:
Synergyx – combines digital delivery, shopping cart and “bullet-proof” affiliate program.
We just recently upgraded to this software.
1Shopping Cart– Integrated affiliate program makes this shopping cart “must look” if
you want to really want to automate your business.
AssocTrac – One of the web’s most powerful and popular affiliate program software
packages. Used by many of the Internet’s most successful marketers.
ClickBank – Has a very simple affiliate program you can use if you are selling
information or electronic products.
Summary of Today’s Assignments:
1. Register your domain name.
2. Set up a hosting account for your website.
(Make sure you have a website statistics program set up so you can measure your
unique visitor counts and other “critical numbers”).
3. Purchase an “Auto-responder” automatic email follow-up tool.
4. Sign up for a credit card merchant account or find an alternative means to accept
credit card payments from people online.
5. Unless you are selling one or two items you deliver electronically, you will need
to sign up for a shopping cart.
6. Finally, if your shopping cart or other delivery method doesn’t have an affiliate
program built in, you will need to set up an affiliate program so you can solicit
other website owners to sell your product(s) or service(s).
Today’s Resources:
Domain Registration Services
Dotster – offers excellent domain name registration services at discount prices!
Domains Bot – Search for live expired, expiring soon and “onhold” domains.
Web Hosting Services
Your Site - Offers a comprehensive hosting service for $5 a month.
All Net Web Design And Hosting – Offers a special deal to “33 Days” purchasers – well
worth checking out. Personalized service and very responsive.
Host 4 Profit – Offers a high quality, high speed hosting service at an incredible
price!
Website Stats
Web Trends Live - Very comprehensive website stats program starting at $25 per
month.
Email AutoResponders
A Weber – Highly Recommended! Autoresponder system used by many of the web’s
top marketers.
Get Response –This is the system a lot of other top online marketers use. This is a great
tool that will make you money!
Auto Response Plus – A stand alone autoresponder system that eliminates the need to
pay monthly fees (except web hosting). Does require some professional help to set up on
your hosting service, but may be worth a hard look.
Marketer’s Choice – Fully integrated system of shopping cart, autoresponder, ad
tracker, credit card processor and more!
Merchant Accounts
ClickBank – very good service for those just starting out selling information and
electronic products online.
Electronic Transfer – Internet-friendly credit card processing company. Can help even
if you have been declined elsewhere.
Marketer’s Choice Credit Cards – Integrates real time credit card processing and
shopping cart along with many additional features.
Shopping carts
Marketer’s Choice Shopping Cart – Integrates real time credit card processing and
shopping cart along with many additional features.
Affiliate Programs
Synergyx – combines digital delivery, shopping cart and “bullet-proof” affiliate program.
We just recently upgraded to this software.
Marketer’s Choice – Integrated affiliate program makes this shopping cart “must look”
if you want to really want to automate your business.
AssocTrac – One of the web’s most powerful and popular affiliate program software
packages. Used by many of the Internet’s most successful marketers.
ClickBank – Has a very simple affiliate program you can use if you are selling
information or electronic products.
“Budget Cruncher”!
The “Budget Cruncher” sections highlight products and services
for people who just don’t have very much money to work with.
Keep in mind that these services usually come with the bare
minimum you need. and may not have the capacity to handle much
business.
Website Hosting
You can buy a domain name and get a year’s worth of hosting from www.doteasy.com
for $25 a year or www.name2host.com for $15-35 a year. Though it may sound like a
great deal, they don’t give you a whole lot of bandwidth, you don’t get cgi-bins (without
paying extra) or much of anything else. It’s about as bare-boned as you can get!
Website Stats
A W Stats – basic online stats service – free!
To set up the necessary physical elements for operating a profitable online business.
Skills Needed:
· Basic Surfing
· Basic Email
· Basic HTML
· Basic FTP
· Basic Word Processing
Today’s Lesson:
NOTE: We have a very busy day ahead of us -- so let’s not waste any time.
In today’s lesson you will:
· Register your domain name.
· Set up a hosting account for your website.
o Make sure you have a website statistics program set up so you can
measure your traffic and other “critical numbers”.
· Purchase an “Auto-responder” automatic email follow-up tool.
· Sign up for a credit card merchant account or find an alternative means to accept
online credit card payments from customers.
· Unless you will sell only one or two items delivered electronically, you will need
a shopping cart.
· Finally, you will need to set up an affiliate program so you can solicit other
website owners to sell your product or service in exchange for a commission.
Part 1 – Registering Your Domain Name
Registering a domain name has gotten very easy over the last few years.
When I bought my first domain about 4 years ago, it cost $70 to register a domain and
most hosting services tacked another $25 to $50 on top of that!
The process of registering a domain is simply a matter of knowing the name you want to
register (remember all the research we did yesterday), filling out an online form and
paying with your credit card.
In fact, most hosting services now make it even easier by allowing you to register your
domain name as part of the hosting sign up process.
You register your domain name with a “registrar” who then keeps your record so when
people type in your domain name they find your site.
You typically buy your registration for 1-10 years depending on the registrar and how
much you want to pay up front for the domain.
One CRITICAL note about your domain name and Yahoo! – Remember yesterday
when we looked at Yahoo and saw they list their sites by the company name?
Well one of the ways that Yahoo checks to see if that really is your company name (you
didn’t really expect they would just believe your business started with an “!” symbol did
you?) is by going to the registrar of your domain name to see who has registered it –
typically called the “registrant”.
Example: Let’s keep going with the antique cars.
I decided to name my domain and my business 1StopAntiqueCarSales.com.
When I register that domain I will put 1Stop Antique Car Sales as the name of the
business in the registrant section of the domain sign up.
That way, if the Yahoo category editor does check the domain name registrar, they will
see that the name of the business matches the domain name.
Yahoo explains all of this to you and I highly suggest you click here for more
information: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/
One more Tip: Based on information obtained from our own results and advice from
recognized experts, right now, it really appears optional whether or not you should
separate your domain name’s keywords with a hyphen (-) in order to increase the chances
of scoring well. You can either do it or not… it doesn’t appear to make any difference,
though it may be useful in order to get a domain that works if the first one you want is
already taken.
Based on this information, the following domain names would work for the above
example:
1StopAntiqueCarSales.com
1StopAntique-CarSales.com
1Stop-AntiqueCar-Sales.com
1Stop-Antique-Car-Sales.com
So now it’s time to register your domain name.
Here are some domain name registrars we know provide reliable service at a fair price.
Sign up for your domain name now.
Domain Registration Services
Dotster – offers excellent domain name registration services at discount prices!
Domains Bot – Search for live expired, expiring soon and “on hold” domains.
Part 2 – Setting up a web hosting service
When I launched my first website way back in the “dark ages” of 1997 I was paying
almost $150 a month in hosting and data transfer charges.
That’s right – a hundred and fifty bucks a month!
My web host watched how many files I uploaded like a hawk and took fiendish glee in
sending me large invoices every single month.
Fortunately all that has changed for the better!
Many hosting services don’t charge “an arm and a leg” for hosting your site.
You can host your site for $10-50 per month depending on how much space you need and
how much bandwidth (data transfer) you plan to use.
Here are some important things to consider when you evaluate any hosting service:
Server space
You will need enough server space to host your site. Most basic websites only need about
one to two megabytes of web space for the entire site.
However, make sure you get at least 5 megabytes of space so you can expand without
worry.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the amount of data transfer you get with the account.
Most hosting services now talk in terms of “gigabytes”. A gigabyte is 1000 megabytes of
data transfer.
Here’s what this means in real people terms:
Bandwidth is the amount of data transferred to visitors as they view your web site.
Your web hosting service includes a certain amount of data traffic with your package,
and fact is most web sites use far less than the allotted amount.
For example, let’s say you have a web page 40 kilobytes in size (including graphics)
going over the net.
Your hosting account allows you a 4000 MB (4 gigabyte).
This allowance equates to about 100,000 visitors downloading that particular page!!
This sounds like a lot – but let’s take it one step further.
Most hosting services have in their fine print a restriction on how much bandwidth you
can use at any time.
Let’s say you have an ebook that is 500kb in size and 10 people tried to download it at
the same time… that would most likely cause a “bargain” hosting company’s server to
“throttle” your bandwidth.
This means your service will slow way down during that peak usage period.
The moral of the story – a “bargain” doesn’t always mean a bargain.
If you plan to sell a lot of ebooks or other electronic products, make sure the hosting
company you hire can handle the load and is flexible enough not to shut you down right
in the middle of a peak usage period.
CGI scripts
The hosting company you hire must let you run cgi or perl scripts on your account. Most
do, but make sure before you sign up.
Cgi scripts run many of the interactive elements on your website, including: contact
forms, affiliate programs, shopping carts, click tracking, and more.
Website “stats”
Many hosting services provide you with a website statistics (stats) program. Make it
provides you with the following information:
· Unique Visitors – how many individual people have come to your website within
a specific period of time.
· Referrers – where do your website visitors come from? If they come from a
search engine, what keywords are they using to find your site? Any worthwhile
stats program includes this information.
· Page views – total page views gives you snapshot of the overall activity on your
website.
One note about “hits” – the term “hits” gets thrown around pretty loosely online and
nobody knows exactly what it means.
“My website gets a lot of hits.” is about the most useless statement you could make!
Hits can entail everything from page views to individual files loading on your site. One
page could be responsible for 10 “hits”!
Your main concern in monitoring your website stats is how many unique visitors are
coming to your site. In other words - How many people are showing up who can buy
from you!
Sign up for your hosting account now!
“Bargain” Hosting: Under $10 a month
Your Site - Offers a comprehensive hosting service for $5 a month.
Mid-Level Hosting
All Net Web Design And Hosting – Offers a special deal to “33 Days” purchasers – well
worth checking out. Personalized service and very responsive.
More “Robust” Hosting: $25 a month
Host 4 Profit – Offers a high quality, high speed hosting service at an incredible
price! Includes:
~ 300 MB of web space
~ 10 GB of Data transfer (That’s a LOT!)
~ Unlimited autoresponders
~ Website stats
~ NOTE: Each additional hosting account you set up is only
$5 a month… it’s a great deal!
If your hosting service doesn’t provide you with a good stats program then you will need
to set one up.
Here are some options for setting up a stats program on your website.
Web Trends Live - Very comprehensive website stats program – monthly fee.
A W Stats – basic online stats service – free!
With the advent of really inexpensive and reliable web hosting nobody has a valid excuse
for not getting their own website to promote their product, ebook or business.
Part 3 – Selecting and using an Autoresponder automatic follow up tool
What The Heck is an Email Autoresponder?
Email autoresponders work like a fax-on-demand system.
Maybe you’ve seen the systems where you call from your fax machine and dial a certain
code and you’ll get back a document in your fax machine?
Well, an email autoresponder works the same way.
If you send an email to an autoresponder address you’ll get back a prewritten message.
Using A Sequential Email Autoresponder in your business
Until just recently, you could only do a one-time autoresponder with one message coming
back.
But now you can set up a whole sequence of autoresponder messages going out on any
day you choose.
For example:
· Message #1 might go out immediately
· Message #2 goes out 2 days later
· Message #3 goes out on day 5
· Day 8 comes another message, etc, etc.
Do you see the real beauty of this whole thing yet?
The best part about it - everything gets done automatically for you because it’s triggered
when a prospect submits their email address.
So that means you can simply set up your system once and it keeps working over and
over again like a tireless money-making robot making sure no prospect ever slips through
the cracks.
Because the vast majority of your customers WILL NOT buy on the first visit to your
site, it’s critical that you have an automated way to follow up with them several times to
entice them back to your site to make a purchase.
Sequential autoresponders give you that *automated* follow up without the tedious
headache of having to do it yourself manually.
Tom Kulzer of smart autoresponder provider AWeber Systems once wrote:
"Consistent follow-up gets results."
“Turbo-charge” your autoresponder with these “TOP 5” Tips:
1. Make “time sensitive” offers in your email follow up. Get your prospects to feel a
sense of urgency that “this offer won’t last forever”.
2. Reinforce that urgency with your follow up mailings. One technique is to have a
“countdown” of days remaining as each email arrives.
3. Build extra incentives into each follow up mailing until the prospect just “can’t
take it anymore” and has to buy from you. These “Bonuses” or incentives could
include:
a. Free Reports
b. Free ebooks
c. Freeware programs
d. Mini-Courses delivered via email
4. When using bonuses – don’t forget to remove clients from that particular
autoresponder follow up as they become a client! You want to avoid any
confusion or extra, unnecessary emails to that new client.
5. Include a “survey” as part of your autoresponder sequence. Use feedback from
your subscribers to help make your autoresponder results even better.
a. What do they like about your autoresponder?
b. What do they hate about it?
c. What other information do they want?
Suggestions for Putting Your Autoresponder To Work
Here are a few of the best ways to put a series of autoresponders to work for your site:
1. Follow up with prospects who download an excerpt from your product or sign-up
for a trial service.
- Encourage them to come back to your site for more information or to make their
first (or repeat) purchase.
2. Multi-part training courses.
- Teach people about a single part of the overall “picture” you are trying to sell
them. Demonstrate your knowledge by giving them something of value and you
will get value in return (their money).
A good example is giving away the first chapter of your ebook free to entice
people to buy the whole thing.
This technique is actually a universal principal - Tell people what they need to
do and then sell them how to do it.
3. Persuading hesitant prospects to become ecstatic buyers.
- Gently remind visitors why they came to your site in the first place and then give
them reasons to return
4. Deliver special reports that prove your company’s worth.
- You already probably have (or can gain access to) information or articles that
would make an excellent “Special Report” that proves you are an expert in your
field.
5. Provide an “evergreen” newsletter to prospects to maintain contact.
- Take elements of your business that never change and turn them into a timeless
newsletter. This means you teach people principles that never go out of date or
style.
6. Automatically follow-up with buyers to sell them even more and make sure they
stay happy!
- It’s much easier to sell an existing customer than it is to find a new one! Don’t
make the mistake of letting a one-time customer stay a one-time customer. Follow
up with your buyers to make sure they have what they need and always look for
new products you can sell them based on their interests.
Just think about how nice it will be to automatically and consistently follow up with
customers to increase sales!
Here is a list of autoresponders we feel comfortable recommending to you.
Research these companies and sign up for your own sequential autoresponder
system today.
A Weber – Highly Recommended! Very reliable autoresponder system used by many
of the web’s top marketers.
Get Response – Recommended! This is the system we use (along with a lot of other top
online marketers). Lots of great features, easy to use, reliable – what else can you say?
This is a great tool that will help you make money!
Auto Response Plus – A stand alone autoresponder system that eliminates the need to
pay monthly fees (other than website hosting). Does require some professional help to set
up on your hosting service but may be worth a serious look.
1 Shopping Cart – Fully integrated system of shopping cart, autoresponder, ad tracker,
credit card processor and more!
Part 4 – Merchant Accounts
A merchant account can represent one of the largest expenses in setting up your online
business.
But you can accept credit cards online without “breaking the bank”.
Since over 90% of all transactions on the Internet involve using a credit card, your
business will ultimately fail if you don’t allow your online customers to use “plastic”.
The problem for most small businesses and “micro-preneurs” involves the (sometimes)
high cost of setting up and maintaining a credit card merchant account.
Fortunately, a few companies have responded to this problem with unique solutions
enabling online merchants to accept credit cards without going broke in the process.
One in particular may be of special interest if you are selling information products such
as ebooks or software your customers download directly from the Internet…
ClickBank
For a $50 one-time fee ClickBank enables online ebook, software and other electronically
delivered product and service sellers to not only accept credit cards, but provide instant
delivery as well.
ClickBank allows any merchant to accept virtually every major credit card in the world.
The online merchant simply adds a purchase link to their site, the customer clicks the
link, fills in their payment information and the credit card gets authorized on the spot.
Once the card gets approved, ClickBank redirects the buyer to a page on the merchant’s
site that enables them to download the ebook, software, or other product they have just
purchased.
The buyer gets an email receipt from ClickBank with the details of the transaction.
The seller also gets an email from ClickBank letting them know a transaction has taken
place along with the buyer’s name, email address, state, and country.
ClickBank mails checks every two weeks for sales made through your account, minus a
$1 fee and 7.5% of each transaction.
ClickBank also charges a $2.50 fee for each check they send out, but sellers can pick the
minimum amount they want to make before a check gets issued.
ClickBank also makes it easy to recruit and pay others to help sell your products through
your own affiliate program.
ClickBank provides the tools for setting up affiliate links, tracking sales and takes care of
paying your affiliates every two weeks.
Overall ClickBank represents and excellent alternative for anyone who wants to test their
hand at selling online information without spending hundreds of dollars on credit card
processing for a product that may or may not sell.
ClickBank does, however, have some drawbacks:
1. They take a relatively hefty chunk out of your pocket compared to more
traditional credit card merchant accounts.
2. You have to wait about a month to get paid on your transactions because of the
way their accounting system is set up.
3. You cannot sell anything but electronic products and services – no physically
delivered products allowed.
4. The ClickBank system is “bare-bones” -- with no built-in autoresponders or
follow-up mechanisms of any kind. You get the purchaser’s name and email
address and that’s about all.
If you will sell anything other than electronic products or services, or if you want
something more robust than the ClickBank system, then you’ll need to get a more
traditional merchant account.
Here are some things to consider when looking at a merchant account and comparing
providers.
· Do they allow Internet sales? Many credit card processors still don’t allow
merchants to process Internet sales -- so you’re wasting your time trying to sign
up with them.
· How much do they charge up front in application fees? Many companies reselling
credit card services charge outrageous application fees -- so make sure you
compare costs!
· What monthly minimum charges apply? Whether you sell anything or not the
processing company will charge you a monthly fee.
· How long must you commit to their service? Some services make you sign up for
3 or 4 years.
· Do you have to buy any equipment? Equipment is another profit center for credit
card processing companies, especially the ones that make you lease software
programs or “terminals” for $50 a month.
· Do you get a “virtual terminal” where you can manually process transactions you
get over the phone or through the mail? You don’t want to have to buy expensive
equipment used to “swipe” cards.,
· How much do they charge as a “real-time” gateway fee?
o NOTE: A real-time gateway allows you to tie your credit card processing
in with your delivery system / shopping cart.
o This enables you to process people’s credit cards in “real-time” online…
without you having to input the numbers or swipe a card through a
machine.
o Also, you must make sure that the credit card processor you choose works
with the delivery system / shopping cart you choose.
Here’s a list of Merchant Account Providers you should check out. Many of them offer
additional services that can save you a lot of time and money.
Check out these credit card processing companies now to compare services
and pricing.
ClickBank – very good service for those just starting out selling information and
electronic products online.
Electronic Transfer – Internet-friendly credit card processing company. Can help even
if you have been declined elsewhere.
Marketer’s Choice Credit Cards – Integrates real time credit card processing and
shopping cart along with many additional features.
Part 5 – Setting up a shopping cart
Setting up shop on the Internet involves more than slapping together a website and
submitting your pages to the search engines.
Statistics tell us that over half of all cyber-shoppers never complete the purchase cycle
started in online shopping carts.
The shopping cart that displays your wares in cyberspace can mean the difference
between success and failure as consumers take that leap of faith and submit their credit
card information over the web.
All shopping cart software should enable consumers to select items and send payment
information over the Internet; however, individual cart packages vary significantly
between providers.
Some shopping carts require the merchant to obtain their own secure server, while others
allow the shop owner to fill out a form through their web browser, upload product
pictures, and set up a functional store in a matter of minutes.
Shopping cart solutions range from software packages costing thousands of dollars in up-
front and monthly charges to free online carts that capture credit card payments and even
send e-mail notification each time a new order arrives.
For most new merchants, credit card payment and processing create the most confusion
regarding shopping carts.
Processing orders online not only requires a secure shopping cart, but a merchant account
with a bank or credit card processing company as well.
The secure shopping cart enables the shop owner to accept payment information for
goods and services purchased online while the merchant account and real time payment
gateway enables them to actually process the customers’ payment.
Beyond the basic “secure-server” and “check out” features, many shopping carts provide
other services, including:
· payment processing
· sophisticated accounting and financial reporting
· customer tracking
· order tracking
· inventory control
· and much more!
Surprisingly, any business with less than a dozen items for sale will find a number of
low-cost shopping carts (some with very sophisticated capabilities) available on the web.
Unless you plan to take a course in website programming, a shopping cart created and
maintained through a web browser-based interface represents the best solution for the
vast majority for businesses large or small.
By logging onto the Internet, you can set up a store, download orders, and perform many
accounting and reporting functions right in the web browser.
Any carts requiring significant programming, software installation and extensive HTML
knowledge rarely warrant the extra effort.
Get excited! Here are some carts known for their user-friendly setup and powerful,
reliable features.
Check out these shopping carts, make a decision as to which one will meet your
needs, sign up for it.
ClickBank – excellent and simple way to go if you only have a handful of information
“e” only products to sell.
Marketer’s Choice Shopping Cart – Integrates real time credit card processing and
shopping cart along with many additional features.
Part 6 - Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs (also known as reseller programs, associate programs, etc.) are an
opportunity for you to get dozens, hundreds, even thousands of web sites all driving
traffic to your site and making sales for you…
And the best part is you don’t pay until they make the sale!
Amazon.com was one of the first companies to build an affiliate program and right now
they’ve got approximately 150,000 affiliates working for them, just sending them visitors
and customers. Their affiliates get paid every time someone clicks on their link and buys
a book.
There are two ways you can start your own affiliate program.
The first way is to have a service bureau take care of nearly everything for you.
They’ll handle recruiting (to an extent) and administrative functions like sending out
checks, tracking, reporting, etc. But normally, you’ll pay a much higher percentage than
if you did it yourself (which is the second way)
A good example of a service bureau is Commission Junction.
If you don’t think you can handle some of the administrative tasks of running a program
in-house then you should consider outsourcing.
Here is a description of the “ideal” affiliate program.
Keep in mind however, that this is the “sports car” model and your budget may require
you to start small and build.
Important Features Your Affiliate Software Should Contain:
· Real time stats for affiliates to check their sales and their commissions without
any interaction from you.
· Ability to export affiliate information into files for easy payment and
administrative work… unless you have hired a bureau to do it for you.
· The ability to credit affiliates for the sale months or even years later if their
referred visitor buys
· Can it handle a 2-Tier program? This means your affiliate program pays your
affiliates not only on their sales, but on the sales of affiliates they introduce to
you.
· Can it work on multiple web sites? Can you use the same affiliate program for
different products you sell or do you have to buy a new license every time you
start a new business or site?
· Can you pay different commissions to different affiliates? You’ll want to reward
your “heavy hitters” with higher commissions and you need to have that
flexibility on a case-by-case basis.
· How simple is it to get software support? Do you have a 1-800 number to call or
do you have to rely solely on the “help” file?
· Is installation and integration provided? Do you have to install it yourself, and if
so – how hard is it?
· Ability to email all affiliates announcements. You should have the ability to send
broadcast and individual announcements to your affiliates to motivate, retain and
get them going.
· Ability to automatically add affiliates and give referral ID#s. Your system must
allow affiliates to “serve themselves” in the sign-up process. You won’t have time
to sign up each individual once your business gets going.
· Email notification of sales for affiliates. Nothing motivates an affiliate more than
receiving an email notification they’ve made a sale and commission check is
coming!
· Full integration with your shopping cart/order processing system. You shouldn’t
manually track sales against your cart transactions and affiliate roster. What a
nightmare! Your processing should automatically track product sales / returns and
automatically adjust your affiliate commissions accordingly.
Other notes and tips on Affiliate Programs:
- Give your affiliates proven tools they can use to sell your products, including:
o Proven Sales Letters that sell really well;
o Endorsement letters they can send to their email lists;
o Banners they can put on their sites;
o Ezine articles they can run;
o Ezine ads that pull buyers.
- Don’t ask your affiliates to do anything you haven’t already done yourself when it
comes to running ads, using website copy or emailing their existing customers.
Nothing destroys your affiliate network faster than telling affiliates something
will work… and they find out it doesn’t!
- Stay in touch with your affiliates… they will sell the products freshest in their
minds.
- Pay your affiliates well and give them high commissions – the higher the better
because, after all is said and done, they’re doing it for the money!
- Never take anything away. Once you offer affiliates something you can’t take it
back… this includes reducing commissions or not paying on time.
If you know you will need an affiliate program, here are some excellent packages
to check out:
Synergyx – combines digital delivery, shopping cart and “bullet-proof” affiliate program.
We just recently upgraded to this software.
1Shopping Cart– Integrated affiliate program makes this shopping cart “must look” if
you want to really want to automate your business.
AssocTrac – One of the web’s most powerful and popular affiliate program software
packages. Used by many of the Internet’s most successful marketers.
ClickBank – Has a very simple affiliate program you can use if you are selling
information or electronic products.
Summary of Today’s Assignments:
1. Register your domain name.
2. Set up a hosting account for your website.
(Make sure you have a website statistics program set up so you can measure your
unique visitor counts and other “critical numbers”).
3. Purchase an “Auto-responder” automatic email follow-up tool.
4. Sign up for a credit card merchant account or find an alternative means to accept
credit card payments from people online.
5. Unless you are selling one or two items you deliver electronically, you will need
to sign up for a shopping cart.
6. Finally, if your shopping cart or other delivery method doesn’t have an affiliate
program built in, you will need to set up an affiliate program so you can solicit
other website owners to sell your product(s) or service(s).
Today’s Resources:
Domain Registration Services
Dotster – offers excellent domain name registration services at discount prices!
Domains Bot – Search for live expired, expiring soon and “onhold” domains.
Web Hosting Services
Your Site - Offers a comprehensive hosting service for $5 a month.
All Net Web Design And Hosting – Offers a special deal to “33 Days” purchasers – well
worth checking out. Personalized service and very responsive.
Host 4 Profit – Offers a high quality, high speed hosting service at an incredible
price!
Website Stats
Web Trends Live - Very comprehensive website stats program starting at $25 per
month.
Email AutoResponders
A Weber – Highly Recommended! Autoresponder system used by many of the web’s
top marketers.
Get Response –This is the system a lot of other top online marketers use. This is a great
tool that will make you money!
Auto Response Plus – A stand alone autoresponder system that eliminates the need to
pay monthly fees (except web hosting). Does require some professional help to set up on
your hosting service, but may be worth a hard look.
Marketer’s Choice – Fully integrated system of shopping cart, autoresponder, ad
tracker, credit card processor and more!
Merchant Accounts
ClickBank – very good service for those just starting out selling information and
electronic products online.
Electronic Transfer – Internet-friendly credit card processing company. Can help even
if you have been declined elsewhere.
Marketer’s Choice Credit Cards – Integrates real time credit card processing and
shopping cart along with many additional features.
Shopping carts
Marketer’s Choice Shopping Cart – Integrates real time credit card processing and
shopping cart along with many additional features.
Affiliate Programs
Synergyx – combines digital delivery, shopping cart and “bullet-proof” affiliate program.
We just recently upgraded to this software.
Marketer’s Choice – Integrated affiliate program makes this shopping cart “must look”
if you want to really want to automate your business.
AssocTrac – One of the web’s most powerful and popular affiliate program software
packages. Used by many of the Internet’s most successful marketers.
ClickBank – Has a very simple affiliate program you can use if you are selling
information or electronic products.
“Budget Cruncher”!
The “Budget Cruncher” sections highlight products and services
for people who just don’t have very much money to work with.
Keep in mind that these services usually come with the bare
minimum you need. and may not have the capacity to handle much
business.
Website Hosting
You can buy a domain name and get a year’s worth of hosting from www.doteasy.com
for $25 a year or www.name2host.com for $15-35 a year. Though it may sound like a
great deal, they don’t give you a whole lot of bandwidth, you don’t get cgi-bins (without
paying extra) or much of anything else. It’s about as bare-boned as you can get!
Website Stats
A W Stats – basic online stats service – free!
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