Marketing Techniques
This is normally the most disappointing part of every Course I have reviewed. Quite simply, what you want to know at this point is
“EXACTLY WHAT DO I DO TO PROMOTE MY SITE AND GET TRAFFIC TO IT?”
Because we know very well that: NO Traffic = No Sales!
Well, there are a TON of Marketing Techniques. We are going to CONCENTRATE on the BEST ones, explain them ONE AT A TIME and when we’re done with this Section, you will be able to execute a MARKETING PLAN that will drive Traffic to Your Site.
First, we need to break the Techniques into the THREE CATEGORIES that we discussed in Chapter Eight:
- COLD MARKETING,
- REFERRAL MARKETING, AND
- REPEAT MARKETING.
COLD MARKETING:
Its called COLD MARKETING because these are Visitors that you are trying to attract that have never before been Visitors. You will want to cap your TOTAL initial COLD MARKETING advertising expenses at 10% of the GROSS SALES Amount. Some of the Marketing that you will do to attract Visitors are FREE through different types of programs, which we will discuss.
Remember, you have a TWO-DIRECTION APPROACH TO YOUR MARKETING PLAN to attract New Visitors: COLD MARKETING, and REFERRAL MARKETING. This means that you do not need to RELY SOLELY on COLD Marketing to attract Visitors, but rather, to supplement your effort to add Visitors to Your Site.
Technique Number One – PAY PER CLICK ENGINES:
A “KEYWORD” is a word that a person searches by in order to find Sites that address the issues that he/she is looking for. There are a lot of strategies for being ranked highly in Search Engines in order to attract Traffic to Your Site. We will discuss these shortly.
There are Search engines however, that allow you to BID on a Keyword in order to get your ranking in the Top 10, or even number one. Pay-Per-Click engines are easy. There’s no magic, really. You just go to a Search Engine, such as Google.com, enter the keywords “Pay-Per-Click” and MANY choices will appear for you. The Pay-Per-Click Search Engine will tell you what the Top Bid Price is for a click from that Search engine for that Keyword.
If you want to be the TOP choice for that particular Keyword, just bid slightly more than the current Top bid. Its that simple.
Once you have some actual Statistics as to how many clicks it takes for you to get a Sale, then you can calculate EXACTLY what the cost of the Advertising is and whether it is effective for you. If it is not immediately cost effective, there’s a LOT of adjustments that can be made. We will explore of this in more detail in PART THREE of this Course.
Google also has something called “Ad Words”. This allows you to place an ad in the Keyword Location that will bring you QUALIFIED VISITORS. A thorough review of your options in this area, and a well-placed and well-worded ad, can do wonders to generate traffic.
One great feature that Google has is that they allow you to limit your daily budget. Otherwise, if it was $0.25 per click, and you had 10,000 clicks for the day, your bill for that day would be $2,500!! If you generated $10,000 is Sales for that day, you probably wouldn’t mind J
But its always better to start a little slower, limit your advertising budget to what you have to spend, and then as you start making Sales, allow 10% for your overall Cold Marketing Advertising Budget, and proportion the money to the Techniques that work Best for you.
The advantage of the Pay-Per-Click Technique is that its simple, it will develop traffic to Your Site, and you are only paying for Visitors that have an Interest in Your Site. Plus, you can limit the amount of money that you want to spend to start off with; adjusting for the next month based on the Gross Sales from the prior month.
Technique Number Two – UTILIZING EXISTING LISTS
Until you build your own list of Prospects and Customers to reach repeatedly, when you just start out you don’t have them! Not to worry.
There are numerous companies that RENT Targeted Opt-In-Lists so you have a pool of folks to contact to start off with. These Companies charge based on the number of delivered messages, so for all that aren’t delivered, they should be replaced or credited. Once again you must be conscious of costs, because if they charge $0.10 per delivered message, that’s $100 per 1000. You should try 1000 at a time, and remember that your message needs to GRAB THEIR INTEREST AND CREATE URGENCY.
If you aren’t getting the desired results, then work through your ad, changing ONE KEY ITEM at a time. Try your headline FIRST, then your Offer, etc. At the end of this Section we will discuss the benefits of DIRECT verses INDIRECT Marketing and the effects they may have on your response rate.
To find Opt-In list rental companies, simply go to Google.com and enter the keywords “opt in email lists”.
Before we go any further, let’s make this point clear: NEVER ATTEMPT TO SEND OUT UNSOLICITED MAIL TO LARGE GROUPS OF UNSUSPECTING PEOPLE! This is called SPAMMING. You DO NOT WANT TO DO THIS FOR TWO REASONS: Not only is it NOT COST EFFECTIVE because most people ignore unsolicited messages, BUT YOUR HOST WILL SHUT YOUR SITE DOWN FOR SPAMMING, which means NO SALES until you relocate to a new host!
YOU WANT TO MATCH YOUR OFFER TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE AN INTEREST IN YOUR OFFER.
Technique Number Three – UTILIZING SERVICES THAT GUARANTEE A SPECIFIC NUMBER OF HITS FOR A SET FEE
There are numerous companies that will advertise for you and drive traffic to Your Site. This increases your effectiveness and the nice thing about these Services are that you know for certain how many Visitors you will receive. Some of these services count a return Visitor within 24 hours as one Visitor, not two. Just make sure you understand who they are contacting. You definitely want a guarantee that they are NOT spamming, and you want them to be TARGETING an audience, not just sending out to addresses that may get you Visitors, but no SALES. Remember, if you spend $100-$200 for every $1000 or more in business that you generate for COLD MARKETING, you are doing WELL!
Always work with a small sample first and test your ads before you go to a big package. Not only will you save some money if the campaign is a bust, but you don’t want to send an Ad out to a large group of people that isn’t overly effective. It’s MUCH BETTER to KNOW that your ad is pulling BEFORE you send out the ad to a HUGE amount of Prospects!
To find services of this nature, go to Google.com and type in the keyword “targeted traffic.”
Remember, attracting non-interested Visitors has a Negative effect on your PROSPECT-TO-SALES RATIO and it skews the Statistics. Your Site may show a very small of Prospects to Visitors, because a higher percentage of your Prospects were really just CURIOUS VISITORS, not QUALIFIED VISITORS.
ALWAYS CONSIDER WHETHER OR NOT YOU WILL ATTRACT QUALITY VISITORS WHEN YOU ADVERTISE.
There are two major factors that affect the percentage of Visitors that are QUALIFIED VISITORS, which we call PROSPECTS. One of the factors is the Quality of the folks you attract in the first place. If your ad is:
- In the wrong place, or
- If it is misleading
You may very well attract Visitors, but these may not be the people that you want to attract! When you are planning to place an Ad, consider WHERE you are placing it and WHAT the ad says. If you are attracting people just for the sake of attracting people, then you’ve lost sight of your NUMBER ONE PRIORITY – WHICH IS TO GENERATE THE DESIRED AMOUNT OF PROFIT!
IN ORDER TO MAXIMIZE THE SALES-TO-PROSPECT RATIO, ONE OF THE MOST CRITICAL ELEMENTS IS THE NUMBER OF PROSPECTS THAT YOUR SITE DEVELOPS. WHENEVER YOU BUY A LIST OR PLACE AN AD, MAKE SURE YOU KEEP THIS IN MIND!
The other factor that will affect Your PROSPECT-TO-VISITOR RATIO is Your Site itself. If Your Site doesn’t follow all of the fundamentals that Your Site needs to follow in order to help “turn” a Visitor INTO a Prospect, then the Visitor will lose interest and exit early. We will discuss this in GREAT DETAIL in Chapters Eleven and Twelve.
Technique Number Four – PLACING CLASSIFIED ADS
There are Thousands of places on the Internet that display Classified Ads. This is a VERY INEXPENSIVE way to develop Traffic. The Classified Ads are all FREE! There’s an easy program to use that submits your Ad to over 2000+ Classified Ad Web Sites and Databases – AUTOMATICALLY!
This saves you weeks and weeks of wasted effort by AUTOMATICALLY SUBMITTING THE ADS – all with the click of a few buttons.
It’s just that simple! All you need to do is:
- Type in your ad …
- Pick the categories and sections of the classified ad sites that you would like your ad to appear in …
- Press Start
- And then WALK AWAY!
At the rate of 30 ads PER MINUTE it will automatically place your ads, leaving you free to look after other aspects of Your Business!
The program is inexpensive and will be listed in the “TOOLS” Chapter of PART THREE of this Course.
One of the things that drove me crazy about the available materials that I purchased was that there was seemingly no order to anything. For programs that I needed to purchase, I had to look through 100’s of pages to find them. For Marketing ideas, I had to do the same. I would have LOVED to have had the benefit of THIS COURSE!
At the end of this Chapter, you will have a SUMMARY, which you can use as your MARKETING PLAN.
When you get to Chapter Twelve, YOUR SITE, you’ll know EXACTLY WHAT TO DO AND HOW TO DO IT to Create a SUCCESSFUL SITE.
And when you get to the Chapter 15 on TOOLS in PART THREE, you’ll know EXACTLY WHAT TOOLS TO BUY AND WHAT THEY DO.
WITH THESE THREE SUMMARIES:
- YOUR MARKETING PLAN,
- YOUR SITE, AND
- YOUR TOOLS,
PLUS THE FOUR THAT WE CREATED IN PART ONE:
- YOUR DREAM,
- YOUR BUDGET,
- YOUR GOALS, AND
- YOUR POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS,
PLUS THE THREE THAT ARE STILL TO COME IN:
- YOUR DAILY, WEEKLY AND MONTHLY TASKING,
- YOUR BUSINESS PLAN, AND
- YOUR WORKING MODEL,
YOU’LL KNOW EXACTLY WHAT TO DO TO START YOUR BUSINESS AND TO GENERATE THE PROFITS YOU DESIRE!
And you’ll be WAY AHEAD of ANYONE who DOES NOT have THIS COURSE and instead has to fight through a SEA OF PAPERWORK to work through Sales Presentations and tons of unnecessary information to try to figure out WHAT TO DO AND HOW TO DO IT!
Technique Number Five – SEARCH ENGINE RANKING
A sizeable portion of your Traffic will come from Search Engines. This is a complicated topic, one that I can easily drone on about for 20 pages. But the bottom line to Search Engine ranking is to answer this question:
WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO GET THE HIGHEST RANKING IN THE SEARCH ENGINES SO I CAN GENERATE THE MOST QUALIFIED TRAFFIC FOR FREE?
For this you need to purchase two programs that work together to submit Your Information to the Search Engines in the appropriate format for the Search engines to accept, and to then Monitor Your Position and know what adjustments to make to Your Site to move up in ranking. This is simply an impossible task to do without the right Tools, submitting manually to 100’s of Search engines and having no idea what to do. And hiring a professional is not only way more expensive than the Tools that are available, but you have more control over what is done and when it is done because its in your hands.
The first program will submit Your Site to the TOP 150 Search engines, Directories and Indices including the TOP 50 SEARCH ENGINES and the TOP 100 GENERAL BUSINESS SEARCH ENGINES. It is not expensive but it is CRITICAL in order to get the best Placement.
The second program monitors your placement in all of the engines and offers you an incredible amount of features to help you make it into the TOP 10 So Your Position GENERATES TRAFFIC. As you probably know, if you are not listed in the first page or two, the odds are you will not generate Traffic.
Both of these programs are very affordable, and absolutely essential. Trust me when I tell you that if they were NOT essential, I absolutely WOULD NOT be recommending them to you!
Note that while some of the Search Engines will list you fairly quickly, others will take weeks, so this is NOT an immediate traffic generator. But this is an ESSENTIAL PART of your 5 point COLD MARKETING PLAN, because for just the Low Cost of the two programs, worked properly, you could be generating INTERESTED, TARGETED TRAFFIC!
Remember to NEVER LOSE FOCUS OF YOUR GOAL, WHICH IS TO
GENERATE PROFIT!
EVERYTHING THAT YOU DO NEEDS TO BE WITH THIS GOAL IN MIND!
Let’s review this Section before moving forward.
IN ORDER TO GENERATE TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE ON YOUR OWN:
- Utilize Pay per Click Engines via Google search
- Utilize Rented Opt-In Lists via Google search
- Utilize Services that guarantee a certain number of hits from a TARGET MARKET LIST via Google search
- List Your ad in 2000+ Free Classified Ad locations via program in TOOLS Chapter of Part Three
- List Your Site in the TOP SEARCH ENGINES and utilize the Software to get you a TOP RANKING via 2 programs in TOOLS.
One-Third of Your Marketing Plan is now complete. There are 5 simple processes. No magic to them at all! I hope your Confidence is building! By the time you are done with the Course, YOU WILL KNOW EXACTLY WHAT TO DO TO GENERATE THE PROFITS THAT YOU DESIRE TO REACH YOUR DREAM!
THAT’S MY PROMISE TO YOU!
REFERRAL MARKETING:
I refer to this type of Marketing as REFERRAL MARKETING instead of COLD MARKETING because these are Visitors that are being REFERRED to Your Site by other Sites. Remember that we said that there are 2 ways to attract NEW VISITORS to Your Site. One way is for You to generate them DIRECTLY by utilizing the 5 Techniques in the COLD MARKETING Section.
Now let’s look at a second and VERY POWERFUL WAY to DRASTICALLY INCREASE YOUR SALES WITHOUT ANY POTENTIAL ADVERTISING LOSSES.
You can probably see that by working ONLY the 5 Techniques in the COLD MARKETING Section, you are limiting the amount of Traffic to Your Site to the amount of Traffic that you can generate utilizing these methods.
Once you have ads that are pulling, you can increase the size of the Opt-In lists that you rent, and you can employ the services of more than 1 company to guarantee more hits by purchasing bigger packages. And with more profits, you can make sure that you rank number one on the pay per click engines as long as they are financially feasible.
You can also branch out to paid classified ads, sponsored links, and other Marketing methods that are available to you once you are up and running.
And of Course you are building YOUR OWN OPT-IN LIST, which we will discuss in more detail in the REPEAT MARKETING Section coming up next.
BUT THE POTENTIAL FOR EMPLOYING AN ARMY OF SITES THAT WILL GENERATE TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE FOR YOU THAT YOU DO NOT PAY ONE CENT TO UNTIL SOMEONE PURCHASES YOUR PRODUCT, IS ENORMOUS TO YOUR GENERATION OF PROFIT.
Think of it. Imagine that there are 100 Sites that have established Opt-In lists of 10,000 each. That’s 1,000,000 – ONE MILLION TARGETED, QUALIFIED, TRUSTING PROSPECTS. NOW IMAGINE THAT THOSE 100 SITES WANT TO GENERATE TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR OFFER!
What’s their Motivation? MONEY OF COURSE! COMMISSION! Is it better to make 100% of EVERY SALE, but only generate the amount of Sales that YOU PERSONALLY CAN GENERATE? OR, Is it better to pay a 30% commission and have 100 SITES GENERATE TRAFFIC FOR YOUR SITE FROM THEIR COMBINED LISTS OF 1,000,000 according to our example?
REMEMBER, ONCE YOU HAVE THAT CUSTOMER, YOU CAN THEN PROMOTE ADDITIONAL PRODUCTS AND SERVICES TO THEM FOR LIFE! FOR FREE! We’ll get to that in the Next Section on REPEAT MARKETING.
The reason why I chose to call it REFERRAL MARKETING is because it makes sense to me. Your Site will get REFERRALS from THEIR SITES. They in turn get paid an agreed upon commission ONLY when Your Offer Sells.
Having 100 Sites that promote Your Offer gives you 100 times the power of promoting Your Site on Your own. And actually, maybe more, since some of these Sites have HUGE Opt-In lists of their very own!
And CERTAINLY, you are NOT LIMITED TO 100 Sites! These Sites, which are the equivalent of a SALES FORCE WORKING ON COMMISSION, could number in the tens of thousands as time goes on! It just depends on whether once they generate Traffic to Your Site, Your Site SELLS Your Offer. Otherwise, they’re not making any money, and like any commissioned Sales Person, they’ll quit! In Chapter Twelve, WE WILL MAKE SURE THAT YOUR SITE KNOWS HOW TO CLOSE SALES!
In “Internet Lingo” these Sites are called “AFFILIATES”. And REFERRAL, or AFFILIATE MARKETING, is estimated to be responsible for 25% of ALL INTERNET SALES.
Axiom Number Fourty – THE BIGGEST SALE YOU WILL NEED ON THE INTERNET IN ORDER TO BE SUCCESSFUL IS TO CONVINCE ESTABLISHED SITES TO PROMOTE YOUR OFFER.
Luckily, as with the TOOLS for placing the Classified ads, and the TOOLS for Search Engine Ranking and Tracking, there are TOOLS available for AFFILIATE MARKETING that are CRITICAL to YOUR SUCCESS.
I get angry when I see all of the “hype” Ads that are telling people that all you have to do is “click here” and you’ll be up and running in 5 minutes. FIRST of all, NOTHING EVER TAKE 5 MINUTES!
With NO MARKETING PLAN, NO DISCUSSION OF THE LAYOUT OF THE SITE, FOLLOW UP, or ANYTHING ELSE THAT IS SO CRITICAL TO THE SUCCESS OF ANY BUSINESS, MAKING THAT CLAIM IS REDICULOUS. It actually insults your intelligence!
First, you need to have an AFFILIATE TRACKING PROGRAM. From my Research, there is only one on the Market that I chose for My Site. It has a ton of features that we will discuss in detail in the TOOLS SECTION in PART THREE of this Course.
Then you need to have the program that goes through all of the Sites that are related to Your Site by Keyword, Identifies those Sites and ALL OF THEIR AFFILIATES, and captures ALL OF THE INFORMATION SO YOU CAN SEND THEM A SERIES OF LETTERS TO JOIN YOUR AFFILIATE PROGRAM! I’ll bet you did not even know there IS such a TOOL! J
You will need a Third program that takes the List that was just created, and after you write your letter ONCE, it will AUTOMATICALLY send the letters to everyone on Your List with one click!
Axiom Number Fourty-One – BUILDING AN ARMY OF AFFILIATES TO REFER QUALIFIED VISITORS TO YOUR SITE IS THE SINGLE MOST CRITICAL PART OF THE PROFIT GENERATION OF YOUR BUSINESS!
BOTH Your Own individual efforts, AND the efforts of the ARMY that You assemble, will combine to DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE!
I hope that I have made CLEAR to you the CONCEPT of BOTH COLD MARKETING AND REFERRAL, OR AFFILIATE MARKETING.
BY TESTING YOUR ADS AND YOUR SALES COPY, TO MAXIMIZE YOUR RESULTS, YOU’LL BE ABLE TO SHARE THOSE SAME ADS WITH YOUR AFFILIATES, AND THEN YOUR SITE IN TURN WILL HAVE THE SAME SALES-TO PROSPECT RATIO FOR THEM AS IT DOES FOR YOU!
AND NOTHING BUILDS A SALES ORGANIZATION FASTER THAN SUCCESS!
Since the programs that you will be using to launch and manage your Affiliate Program will be explained in more detail in the TOOLS Section of PART THREE of this Course, there’s no need to have an in-depth discussion here. What I wanted to do is to make the MARKETING TECHNIQUES that you will be using to promote Your Site as easy as possible so you understand the CONCEPT of WHAT you are doing and WHY you are doing it.
The “HOW” to do it is easy because the programs were designed for beginners. So there’s no need to worry about “HOW”. At least, for NOW! J
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REPEAT MARKETING:
Axiom Number Fourty-Two – THE SINGLE MOST CRITICAL ELEMENT OF YOUR MARKETING SUCCESS IS ACHIEVED BY BUILDING YOUR VERY OWN LIST OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE AGREED TO HEAR FROM YOU.
This is called Your OPT-IN List, because the folks that are on it are there because they are Interested in something that you offered to them, so they Opted In to participate. A better name would be the “Voluntary Participation” List, but it’s probably NOT worth the effort to change the “Internet lingo”!
The LARGER you build this List, the More people that you will be able to approach to either CONTINUE TO MAKE YOUR OFFER, or, OFFER NEW PRODUCTS OR SERVICES.
Just as one of your Goals is to build an army of Affiliates to help you to promote Your Offer, it is also CRITICAL that you have some products that You can offer to Your Customers and Prospects aside from Your Unique Product.
If you do not have a Unique Product, or if you want to Add Products to Your Site, there are two ways of doing so.
The First way is to go to Google.com and do a Keyword search for “Resell Rights”. This will give you Products that you can Resell and keep ALL the Profits. The reason why people allow their E-books to be given away is because there are links in those E-books that direct the reader to Offers that result in generating Profit for the Author. So the Author allows the E-book to be sold to get it into the hands of a Target Market.
This means that you make the Profit for the Sale of the E-books, and the Author makes the profit for anything that gets sold through the links in his E-book. Unless the E-book is competing with you for all of the products that you are trying to sell, this is a great way to build your income.
The Second way is to go to Google.com and do a search for the Keyword “Affiliate Programs”. This will open up a whole New World of Products for you to Sell for a Commission without ever handling the Product. Remember that in the case of Affiliates, you may earn a commission of 20%-50%, whereas when you have Resell Rights to E-books and/or Software, you keep 100% of the profits. It’s best to have Your Site set up so that you can accommodate both of these types of offers. While E-books are 100% profit, they may only sell for $20. At a 30% Affiliate Commission on a $200 Course, on the other hand, your profit on a Sale is $60!
So both have value, and by having additional Products, whether it’s an E-book Set that you put together for Your “Special Price”, or an Affiliate offer, you can repeatedly offer these items to YOUR OPT-IN LIST.
Let’s say you have 100 Visitors to Your Site per day, and Your Site’s Sales-To-Prospect Ratio is 1/50. This means that you are making 2 sales per day, which means that you are NOT MAKING 98 Sales per day! Now, how beneficial would it be to at least have the Email Addresses of those 98 people so you could contact them again and again and again for free?!
NOW YOU CAN SEE THE IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING YOUR LIST!
Once you have Your List you have a ready-made group of people that you can REPEATEDLY MARKET. You can:
- Invite them back to Your Site for a “Special limited time offer”,
- Give them a Coupon or a Special Link to go to for a “Discount for acting in the next 3 days”, and
- Offer them your unique product, a product to which you have the resell rights, or an Affiliate product.
You will NEVER run out of products to offer!
Axiom Number Fourty-Three – THE REPEAT METHOD, DONE PROPERLY, COULD RESULT IN GENERATING AS MUCH PROFIT AS YOUR GROSS NEW SALES VOLUME!
Your contact with Your List that will include both Prospects and Customers is done through your own Electronic Magazine. This is called an “Ezine”.
By publishing one twice a month, for example, you are INFORMING your List by providing Valuable, Free Information, and at the same time Promoting a New Offer.
There is a program required for creating the layout of the Ezine and merging it with Your List, as well as keeping track of Subscribe/Unsubscribe requests, which needs to be a part of every Ezine issue. This program is already one of the Tools that were needed to send out your mail to recruit Your Affiliates, so you will already have it! In addition, its also one of the Tools that will be required in order to automate much of your Business with the use of Autoresponders, which we will talk about in more depth shortly.
If you are not a proficient writer, do not worry! Just go to Google.com and do a search for the keyword “free content”. You will find a lot of content available out there that you can use for your Ezine. The thing to watch out for is that the free content comes with the requirement that you do not alter the link from the Author, which of course invites people to his Site. If his Site is in direct competition with you, don’t use it! You don’t EVER want to direct people AWAY from Your Site to a Competitor’s Site!
By sending out an Ezine twice a month, of leaves you the two off-weeks to send out some kind of “Special Offer”. You want to treat Your List like GOLD, because that’s what its worth to you! And because the folks on Your List BELIEVE IN YOU. So you don’t want to wear out your welcome. Contacting them once a week is as often as you should go.
You are probably personally subscribed to more than one Ezine, or Newsletter. I am sure you are receiving mine. You will want to follow a similar layout in terms of the Header, Footer, Content Space, etc. so it’s consistent each week. You wouldn’t want your local newspaper to have the Sports Section be Part A one day, Part B the next, Part C the next, etc.
Axiom Number Fourty-Four – CONSISTENCY BUILDS A COMFORT LEVEL WITH YOUR LOYAL FOLLOWERS, AND CREATES AN AIR OF PROFESSIONALISM AND CONFIDENCE.
Now let’s discuss HOW TO GET THE EMAIL ADDRESSES of people that have visited Your Site to build the list of those folks to continue to Market them.
Axiom Number Fourty-Five – OBTAINING THE NAME AND EMAIL ADDRESS IS A CRITICAL PART OF THE AMOUNT OF PROFITS THAT YOU GENERATE.
MAKE SURE YOU CLEARLY UNDERSTAND THIS CONCEPT!!
The reason why you want the Prospect’s First Name and Email Address is because the program you will be using will personalize the Email that you send to them, putting their First Name in the Subject Line of your message. This INCREASES the percentage of time that an individual will open a message.
Personally, whenever I get a message in my private mailbox that starts off “Friend”, I immediately report it as Spam! I never open it because I don’t know who sent and I don’t want to risk introducing a virus into my machine.
So, we have established WHY WE MUST HAVE AN OPT-IN LIST, and we have established WHAT INFORMATION WE NEED in order to maximize our Success Rate. Now let’s take a look at some of the ways to entice the Prospect to give us the information!
One of the very first ways is to simply OFFER THEM SOMETHING OF VALUE in return for their First Name and Email Address. This could be an Ezine subscription, or you can call it a Newsletter, a Special Report, a Handbook, an Audio Book, or anything that is inexpensive if not free to you. Some Sites will mail an audiotape to the Prospect, for example. I prefer to keep it simple and work with something of value that is downloadable, such as the specific items listed above. This way the cost to you is free, and there is no labor involved in producing or handling a Product.
At the Site, if the folks PURCHASE YOUR OFFER, you automatically have their Name and their Email Address, as well as what they have purchased, as long as Your Site is set up properly to capture this Information. Heck you even have their City and State to personalize follow-up Emails with!
Just add to your Sales Presentation: As one of the BENEFITS of PURCHASING TODAY, I AM INCLUDING A ONE YEAR SUBSCRIPTION TO “MY FABULOUS EZINE”, a $119.40 Value, ABSOLUTELY FREE!
Axiom Number Fourty-Six – IF THEY DO NOT PURCHASE YOUR OFFER, YOU CANNOT LET THEM LEAVE YOUR SITE WITHOUT OFFERING THEM SOMETHING OF VALUE IN RETURN FOR THEIR NAME AND EMAIL ADDRESS.
You would then offer Your Prospect something of Value in order to get their First Name and Email Address. Here are some GREAT WAYS TO DO THIS!
First, when the Prospect attempts to exit Your Site, a pop-up comes up that presents Your Offer:
SUBSCRIBE TODAY TO OUR NEWSLETTER- A $119.40 VALUE FREE FOR THIS LIMITED TIME OFFER ONLY!
Or SUBSCRIBE NOW TO OUR NEWSLETTER – A $119.40 VALUE -ABSOLUTELY FREE!
Instead of “NEWSLETTER”, you can say “SPECIAL REPORT” – a $19.95 VALUE – ABSOLUTELY FREE!
OR OUR “AUDIO BOOK”, FILLED WITH INCREDIBLE, VALUABLE, MUST-HAVE INFORMATION – A 29.95 VALUE – ABSOLUTELY FREE!
You get the idea. Give them some reason to NOT LEAVE without taking you up on your ENTICING OFFER! Once you have their First Name and Email Address, you have the potential of Years and Years of Sales to this Prospect!
Now let’s talk about one of the MOST IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF SALES, because this is a CRITICAL TIME in Your Site’s interaction with Your Prospect.
What I just described to you is what MANY SITES do and do effectively to capture the information that they need in order to build their lists.
But if Your Site is advanced enough, you can employ a Series of TWO POP UPS, having the “SIGN UP NOW FOR OUR NEWSLETTER” Pop up be SECONDARY to the SURVEY POP UP.
Axiom Number Fourty-Seven – IN SALES, THE SINGLE MOST CRITICAL PIECE OF INFORMATION, THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLOSING THE SALE 100% MORE OFTEN, IS FINDING OUT WHAT THE OBJECTION IS.
The REASON why Your Prospect didn’t buy, in Sales Terminology, is called the OBJECTION. Getting the OBJECTION IS CRITICAL because it allows you to design an Autorespond message that SPECIFICALLY ADDRESSES the issue of the Prospect’s OBJECTION.
For example, let’s say that the Prospect came to Your Site because they were interested in Your Offer, but they didn’t buy. Was it because the Price was too high? Was it because the Offer wasn’t clear? Was it because they were Skeptical that it could live up to its claims?
Would this information be HELPFUL to you? YOU BET IT WOULD!
You’d be able to design an Autorespond message that said:
Jim, thank you so much for visiting our Site on Thursday 2/8 to inquire about our Widget X-100. I understand that you were looking for a Product that will not only do Tasks A, B and C EFFORTLESSLY, but will also do TASKS D and E just as effectively!
(This is known as a RECAP of the benefits, which is a form of using what is known as a SUMMARY CLOSE; much more on Closing techniques later)
“As I understand it, You LOVED the Widget X-100 but the price of $198 was a little steep right now, eh?! Don’t worry, your secret’s SAFE with me.”
(This is another Sales technique – “AGREE. And then DISARM”)
“Well Jim, let me put your mind at ease, because I’ve got GREAT NEWS FOR YOU! I am sure you KNOW the BENEFITS of OWNERSHIP of the Widget X-100, and frankly I’d LOVE for you to own one! So here’s what I have done.
I have created a “SPECIAL LINK” for you to be able to take advantage of purchasing the Widget X-100 TODAY. Clicking on this link will take you to a SPECIAL PRIVATE SITE that will allow you to purchase the Widget X-100 today, but instead of billing your credit card for $198, Jim – We’ll do just $33 a month for the next 6 months!
Jim, HOW’S THAT FOR GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE AND CONFIDENCE IN OUR PRODUCT!! J
I only ask that when you tell your friends where you bought your Widget X-100, PLEASE KEEP THIS SPECIAL OFFER UNDER YOUR HAT! If we were to try to sell EVERY Widget X-100 this way, we just couldn’t do it!
But on a LIMITED BASIS, for a LIMITED TIME, to folks who would honestly benefit from owning one, it just seemed like the Right Thing to Do.
So Jim, Click Here Right Now to go the SPECIAL SITE for the SPECIAL OFFER, and Your Widget X-100 will be in your hands before you know it!”
Sincerely,
John Smith
Widget Master
P.S. Jim, “I want to make sure to mention that you DO STILL RECEIVE the THING-A-MA-JIG X-100 ATTACHMENT, THE WATCHA-MA-CALL-IT AND THE DO-HICKEY EVEN WITH THESE SPECIAL TERMS!
AND, DON’T FORGET, THERE IS STILL ABSOLUTELY NO RISK FOR YOU BECAUSE THE ENTIRE PACKAGE COMES WITH A FULL ONE-YEAR, NO QUESTIONS ASKED, MONEY BACK GUARANTEE!
CLICK HERE RIGHT NOW TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS INCREDIBLE OFFER WITH OUR COMPLIMENTS!”
Now, can you see how VALUABLE having the Prospect’s First Name, what Offer they were interested in, and what their OBJECTION is, can help you to CLOSE SALES?! I thought so!
This is known as “Back-end” Sales. As opposed to COLD AND REFERRAL MARKETING STRATEGIES, which are Sales to NEW PROSPECTS, done on the Front-end of Your Site, REPEAT MARKETING TAKES PLACE ON THE BACK END OF THE SALES PRESENTATION.
So, when a Prospect attempts to exit, Your Site would be the MOST POWERFUL if the FIRST POP-UP offered something of VALUE in return for filling out a 6 or 8 Question SURVEY.
Let’s explore EXACTLY HOW to Set Up Your Survey to work in conjunction with Your Autorespond Program.
One of the questions of the Survey will be:
What Offer were you interested in Today:
Followed by a drop down menu of choices of product or product lines.
And One of the Questions of the Survey will be:
What was the reason why you didn’t buy today:
Followed by a drop down menu of choices, such as “skeptical”, “too costly”, “not enough time”, didn’t have credit card handy, etc.
Then your program gathers the information, and knows that Jim, at Email address JimTheProspect-@-Example.com wanted the Widget X-100 but couldn’t afford it right now. And the next thing you know, your Autoresponder AUTOMATICALLY sends a message like the one that we just reviewed!
Let’s say that you have 4 Products that they could have been interested in, and 5 reasons why they may have chose not to Purchase the Product today. If the Prospect chose Choice One on the First Question, and Choice One on the Second Question, then a message from the Survey would be generated to a Specific Mailbox that you could name 1,1. Likewise, you would set up 1,2, 1,3, 1,4, and 1,5, then 2,1-2,5, 3,1 – 3,5 and 4-1 – 4,5. You would then set up 20 SPECIFIC AUTORESPOND MESSAGES to go to the folks in these SPECIFIC mailboxes to address their SPECIFIC OBJECTIONS!
If the Prospect refuses to fill out the Survey, and instead exits the Survey, THEN the Second pop-up offering a free Ezine, newsletter, or a $19.95 report, etc. should Pop up to give you a SECOND CHANCE to obtain the Prospect’s First name and Email Address. You won’t have the OBJECTION, but at least you will be able to continue to contact the Prospect.
To review, there are Two ways of obtaining the First Name and Email Address if the Prospect does not make a purchase. The BEST WAY is the Survey Pop-up and the Second Value-for-Info Pop-up upon exit by your Prospect. You should also have the Option for the Prospect to EASILY voluntarily sign up for your Newsletter or Ezine on every page that is feasible so you have their information and you can add them to Your List. When we get to Chapter Twelve, YOUR SITE, we will see in Detail exactly how these two pop-ups fit in to the STRUCTURE of YOUR SITE!
IN ADDITION TO OFFERING SOMETHING OF VALUE TO YOUR PROSPECT ON EXIT FROM YOUR SITE WITHOUT PURCHASE, YOU CAN ALSO OFFER SOMETHING OF VALUE IN YOUR ADS!.
THIS IS A CRITICAL PIECE OF MARKETING TECHNOLOGY SO PAY CLOSE ATTENTION.
INDIRECT MARKETING WITH A TWIST!
When you run your ad, say in Classifieds, instead of whetting their appetite and then directing them to click on a link to Your Site, which is DIRECT MARKETING, you can have them click on a link to obtain a FREE REPORT- VALUE $19.95.
THIS REPORT PRESELLS THE IDEA OF YOUR OFFER AND DIRECTS THE PROSPECT TO YOUR SITE.
This is an EXCELLENT EXAMPLE OF INDIRECT MARKETING because it involves going to Your Site indirectly through the invitation in the Report that they are retrieving. HOWEVER, IN ORDER TO GET THEIR COPY OF THE REPORT, THEY MUST PROVIDE THEIR NAME AND EMAIL ADDRESS!!!!
AND JUST LIKE THAT, YOU’VE GOT THEIR INFORMATION BEFORE THEY EVER GET TO YOUR SITE!
BOTH DIRECT and INDIRECT MARKETING have their plusses and minuses. If you entice a Prospect to come directly to Your Site, and they do not buy, at least you got them to Your Site and you have two opportunities upon exit, the “SURVEY” screen and the “VALUE” screen, to obtain their information.
But sometimes, if they weren’t “Warmed up”, or “Pre-sold”, Your Site’s Sale-To-Prospect Ratio will be lower than if the Prospect WAS warmed up first.
On the other hand, if you attempt to get their First Name and Email Address before they can open the “FREE REPORT -$19.95 VALUE”, here’s the concern. Unless it is a TRULY COMPELLING OFFER, you will lose potential Prospects who may have come to your Site but now do not know what Your Site even is.
One Solution to this dilemma is to put both the link for the Report AND the link for the SITE in Your Ad. This way, if a Prospect goes to retrieve the Report, and sees that they have to enter information, and gets cold feet, they can return to the ad and have the opportunity to go directly to the Site.
Only by trying different ads and tracking Your Results will you know which type of Promotion works best for you. Fortunately, one of the programs that we will talk about further in the TOOLS Section of Part Three tracks the ads FOR YOU! So you will KNOW which ads were Successful and which weren’t. This will allow you do stop running the ads that do not produce the desired results, and run more of the ads that are productive as well as to try new ads.
Once you have a few Successful Ads, then you can move to the next level, which would be strategically placed PAID Classified ads, as opposed to only free ones. This expands your COLD MARKETING Campaign, helping you to personally develop more Traffic to Your Site and earning the full Sales Price less the cost of the ad, of course. But there’s no Affiliate to pay a percentage of the Commissions on Business that you generate yourself.
Now there are TWO THINGS that will help you to build the Army of Affiliates that you need. One is MONEY. There’s no substitute for it. You need to pay a reasonable commission, or other Sites won’t participate. And you need to make it a TWO TIER Affiliate Program, so that Your Affiliate can in turn recruit Affiliates so that the Army continues to grow! Your hope is that in time you have THOUSANDS of AFFILIATES sending TONS OF TRAFFIC YOUR WAY!
But here’s a NEW TWIST on SELLING YOUR AFFILIATES ON PUSHING YOUR OFFER. SHARE THOSE WHO SIGN UP FOR YOUR OFFER WITH YOUR AFFILIATE!
In other words, let’s say that Your Affiliate has a link to Your Site on their Site, and a Prospect clicks on that link. If the Prospect BUYS, the Affiliate earns a Commission. But if the Prospect does NOT buy, the Affiliate doesn’t earn anything. In time, without Sales, the Affiliate will most probably choose to utilize the space on his Site for another Site’s Offer since yours isn’t making money for him.
Now the BOTTOM LINE is that Your Site MUST Make Sales with a reasonable Sales-To-Prospect Ratio. But the point that I am making is this: If the Affiliate sends Traffic your way, that Affiliate not only earns a Commission IF the Prospect BUYS, the Affiliate ALSO RECEIVES the First Name and Email Address of this Prospect to ADD to their list as well!
THIS AFFILIATE WILL BE MUCH MORE EXCITED TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU AND TO RECOMMEND YOUR PROGRAM TO OTHERS!
Just think of it this way. The Affiliate is now helping himself to BUILD HIS LIST AND GET PAID FOR IT because in the process of referring Traffic to you, he is gaining access to the First Names and Email Addresses of the Traffic that he generated!
WHAT YOU NOW HAVE ARE A BUNCH OF EXTREMELY MOTIVATED AFFILIATES THAT WANT TO SEND YOU TRAFFIC BECAUSE YOU NOT ONLY SELL SO THEY MAKE MONEY, BUT YOU ALSO HELP THEM TO BUILD THEIR LISTS. PLUS, YOU ARE MAKING THEM LOOK GOOD TO IN THE PROCESS BECAUSE THEY ARE GIVING AWAY VALUABLE INFORMATION.
SO YOU ARE NOW THEIR HERO!
When it comes to Repeat Marketing, this should be Clear:
Axiom Number Fourty–Eight – IT IS MUCH MORE COST EFFICIENT TO SELL AN EXISTING CUSTOMER, THEN AN EXISTING PROSPECT, OR A NEW PROSPECT, IN THAT ORDER.
A CUSTOMER WILL BE MORE APT TO TRUST YOU AND BUY ANOTHER PRODUCT BECAUSE THEY HAVE AN ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU.
If a customer has purchased something from you, they have received it, and they’re happy with it, when you make a new offer to them, Statisically, Your BEST CHANCE for a Sale is from an EXISTING CUSTOMER.
The next most Cost-effective group to Sell to are your EXISTING PROSPECTS. These folks haven’t purchased anything from you, but they Opted In at some point to receive your Ezine or Newsletter or Bulletin. They know who you are and have somewhat of a comfort level with you. Approaching this group with a New Offer will not be as cost-effective as that of Your Customers, but it will still yield better results than “Cold Prospects” will.
This leaves “COLD PROSPECTS” in the third position, as the least cost-effective of the Three Groups.
However, even though Your OWN Opt-in list to Your Customers and Prospects are the Most Cost-Effective, when you are first starting out, YOU DON’T HAVE ANY! That’s why COLD MARKETING TECHNIQUES are so CRITICAL to get started, as is the DEVELOPMENT OF AN ARMY OF AFFILIATES TO HELP YOU TO SELL YOUR OFFER!
Since BOTH Cold Marketing AND Affiliate Marketing are the Two Sources for the generation of NEW BUSINESS, it is CRITICAL that you ALWAYS DEVOTE TIME AND EFFORT TO BOTH COLD AND AFFILIATE MARKETING!
You now have a good idea of exactly what to do in order to get QUALIFIED TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE!
Remember the “funnel” concept that we talked about earlier. By driving Qualified Traffic to Your Site, you are over the first two hurdles. You have Driven VISITORS to Your Site, and, you have driven QUALIFIED Visitors so you have maximized your PROSPECT-TO-VISITOR RATIO.
In terms of Profit, let’s say that you generate 100 Visitors per day from your Cold Marketing, and another 300 Visitors per day from your Affiliates. That’s a total of 400 visitors. Now lets say that you are selling something for $100, and that 1/50 Prospects buy your offer. Let’s say for example that all of these Visitors are Prospects for illustration purposes:
This means that for the 100 Prospects that you generated through COLD MARKETING, 1/50 purchased, so you have 2 Sales at $100 each, totaling a Gross Sales Volume of $200.
Affiliate Marketers drove 300 Prospects to Your Site, and at 1/50, Your Site closed 6 Sales. At $100 per Sale, this totals $600. If you are giving out a 40% Commission, then the Affiliates earn $240, and you earn $360. ($600 in Gross Sales minus $240 in paid commissions to Affiliates equals $360).
So for this day, you had Gross NEW SALES of $200 + $600, which equals $800 for the day. This does not include any BACK END SALES through the use of the Autoresponders, which we will talk about next, and it doesn’t consider The Value That Your Business Gained By Adding to Your List.
If 1/50 purchased, then 49/50 DID NOT! That means that out of your 400 Prospects, you made 6 Sales, while 394 DID NOT PURCHASE! BUT, if you were able to obtain 1/2, or 200 First Names and Email addresses out of the 394 who did not purchase, then you will be able to continue to contact these 200 Prospects. This provides you with the Opportunity to either Sell them Your Offer, a Profitable AFFILIATE OFFER or a Product for which you have the Resell Rights.
Autoresponders are an INVALUABLE TOOL. As I HOPE you are starting to see, PROMOTION is the KEY to GETTING TRAFFIC. Without Traffic you’ve got a dead Site. So Traffic is CRITICAL! The MORE TIME AND EFFORT you put into BOTH Cold AND Affiliate Marketing, into finding Affiliates, into making sure that your ads are placed, and that your Search Engine Ranking is as good as it can be, etc. is CRITICAL to the GENERATION OF THE DESIRED AMOUNT OF PROFITS!
NEVER FORGET YOUR GOAL, WHICH IS TO GENERATE THE DESIRED AMOUNT OF PROFIT!
As part of the setup of Your Site, you will have NUMEROUS MAILBOXES. The Autoresponder is set such that whenever an Email comes into a specific box, the Autoresponder sends a pre-set message. At the bottom of that message you should insert the following. “In the event this message did not answer your question, please feel free to contact me at Mysite.com”. This automates all mailboxes except for the ONE that you need to check daily to answer customer inquiries.
LOOK FORWARD TO THESE MESSAGES- THEY ARE AN EXCELLENT SOURCE OF FUTURE CUSTOMERS BECAUSE YOU ARE DEVELOPING A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM.
In addition to automating your mailbox responses so you are not answering Emails all day instead of promoting Your Business, the Autoresponders can be set up to:
- Send an automatic message confirming their order
- Send password information as required for access
- Send the correct rebuttal message based on survey response
- Send a series of messages based on a pre-set schedule to introduce new products and services
- Send your Ezine, newsletter or bulletins
- Send special limited time offers to your prospects
One word of caution though. Do not attempt to SELL in the email. All you want to do is whet their appetite and entice them to click on a link where you can THEN Sell them on Your Offer in accordance with The Sales Principles that will be discussed in detail in the coming Chapters.
REPEAT MARKETING IS INCREDIBLY COST EFFECTIVE because with the click of a button, through the use of Autoresponders, you can Continually Market Your Opt-In List, MAXIMIZING THE AMOUNT OF PROFITS THAT YOU CAN GENERATE From Your EXISTING Base.
Well, CONGRATULATIONS! You now have something that I didn’t have when I started out. With so much Information Overload, I couldn’t figure out EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED TO DO IN ORDER TO GENERATE TRAFFIC TO MY SITE, AND WHY!
You can take a copy of the Summary of This Chapter, and have the FIRST CRITICAL PIECE OF YOUR BUSINESS PLAN IN PLACE!
YOUR MARKETING PLAN!
IMAGINE, WITH ALL OF THE STUFF THAT IS AVAILABLE TODAY ON THE INTERNET, HERE’S EVERYTHING YOU NEED FOR YOUR MARKETING PLAN TO DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE, SUMMARIZED ON ONE PAGE!
IS THAT COOL, OR WHAT?
