2010 January | New Breed Marketer

Jan 31

Okay, I know you have to be excited about the “Big Game” next weekend. Well, I mean those of us that are really into football. I have to suffered another season where my team, Go Chargers, let me down again. But there is always next year.

And what is it with this Pro Bowl game this year. It was kind of exciting when the guys got to go for Hawaii to have some fun with their friends and family. Sort of an after season reward besides making the Pro Bowl team.

Honestly I have not watched the Pro Bowl for a number of years. More of an offensive show with very little defense. My football season usually ends after that “Big Game” anyway. But this year it is played before the game and in Florida. Now I have nothing bad to say about Florida, I was born there, but the timing of the game and the place just does not fit. Oh well I digress.

This is another reminder about my friend Bob “The Teacher” Jenkins and his annual Halftime Sale during the “Big Game”. If you are not familiar with it, he will take some products easily valued at $97 or more and let the halftime score determine the price of the products. Yes you heard that right.

From my prior post, here are some examples of games past:

Halftime Sale XLII – the score was 7-3; price = $10
Halftime Sale XLIII – the score was 17-10; price = $27
Halftime Sale XLIV – who knows what the score will be!
But if it’s 0-0, you get everything free!

Now you can bet I am hoping for a defensive battle. This is a great chance to enhance your internet knowledge and with Bob being a former teacher I am sure you will also learn something from these product.

Again, the game is February 7, at around 6pm EST, so I am sure you football fanatics will be ready. And even though the Who is playing during the halftime show, I know you can take a few minutes to go check out this deal. Cheer for a 0-0 score, sorry Bob.

Enjoy the game!

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Technorati Tags: big game, bob the teacher, football, halftime sale, pro bowl

Jan 30

Are You Paying For Your Internet Marketing Education

As I see it, there are a few ways to help you succeed in Internet Marketing. A couple of ways that I particularly like is to find a mentor who can show you the ropes and to get yourself an Internet Marketing education.

Having been there, I am still amazed at how many people will put out the big bucks for the latest and greatest digital product that makes the promise to help them to make a ton of money online, but they will not do any purchasing of any physical books on marketing and selling. Believe me I have learned my lessons.

Why should you invest in your education? Even if you are selling online or offline, you will find similar principles of selling are used. Though you are selling to people, the only thing different will be the delivery. It has always been and will remain true, knowledge is power and getting all the know-how you can will help you in many ways.

You will learn about writing compelling sales copy that can help turn people to buyers, Still not one of my strong points but I will continue to work on it. Even if you want to outsource your sales letters, you are selling in everything you do , be it from autoresponder emails to requests for joint venture partners.

Remember that you should treat internet marketing as a profession, not a hobby. As with your offline profession, wouldn’t you read books to help you get ahead in your profession? Here are just a few of the books you might consider reading as part of your internet marketing education.

Anything by Dan Kennedy such as The Ultimate Sales Letter, The No B.S. series, The Ultimate Marketing Plan, etc

Little Red Book of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer

How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

Advertising Secrets of the Written Word by Joseph Sugarman

Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy

Advanced Selling Strategies by Brian Tracy

Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch

Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki

Web Copy That Sells by Marie Veloso

Top Grading by Brad Smart

Poor Richard’s Web Site Marketing Makeover by Marcia Yudkin

My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins

Get Slightly Famous by Steve VanYoder

101 Ways to Promote Yourself by Raleigh Pinskey

Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You’ve Got by Jay Abraham

The Richest Man in Babylon by George Clayson

The Science Of Influence by Kevin Hogan

Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz

4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

The Purple Cow by Seth Godin

Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz

Metaphorically Selling by Anne Miller

Pushing To The Front by Orison Swett Marden

Sizzlemanship by Elmer Wheeler

Focal Point by Brian Tracy

Looking Out For Number One by Robert Ringer

Law Of Success by Napoleon Hill

The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies by Chet Holmes

Tribes by Seth Godin (or anything by him)

This is but a sampling of some of the best books on business and selling out there. I am sure you also have a few favorite that you could add to this list. This is but a sampling. Try taking some time each week to further your education with the printed word and see how what you learn will be shown through the growth of your business.

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Technorati Tags: autoresponder, internet marketing education, joint venture partners, offline marketing, online marketing

Jan 27

Why Do You Want OTOs, UpSells, Downsells And Backends

You may look at OTOs, upsells and downsells as being really complicated if you have not done them before, but as an online marketer you should consider incorporating some combination of them. Why? Because they will help you to earn more money than you would with your initial product by itself. Look at it like this… while you are setting up to promote and sell one product, why not try to offer three products to the same number of people with just a little extra work. Rather than just make $17 x 100 people, you could also make $97 x 100 people on your upsell, or $47 x 100 on your downsell, or any combination.

- OTO
One time offers are usually offered between the order page and product download page. They are normally an offer for a product at a discounted price and they should truly be a one time offer. For that discount in the one time offer to be seen later would certainly hurt you credibility with your clients.

- Upsell
When you make a sell to your customer, you immediately offer them an upsell. It should be a related product and often at a higher price but that price can be higher or lower than the original product your customer purchased. Try offering PLR rights as an upsell, or a membership site that will give them more of the same product as they just purchased. It is usually considered the time right after the initial sale is the best time to sell another product to your customer; as that way they get to skip buyer’s remorse.

- Downsell
A downsell is when you offer a less expensive product after your customer has said no to your original upsell. This should be presented immediately after the upsell is declined and many times it can be a scaled-down version of the upsell product. You could offer the PDF without the accompanying videos, or maybe the videos without the written transcripts. And you might not want the downsell to be the exact same offer as your upsell at a lower price!

- Backend
Now when a marketer talks about their backend, you can be sure they are not talking about the part of their body they sit on. That is a marketing term they are using that means anything you sell to your customers, after your customers have have bought and entered your sales funnel. It is true that if you have sold them a valuable product, your customers are more likely to buy from you again. Hopefully you have put them on your list and have carefully created a plan to send them helpful information as well as recommendations for your other products, services or affiliate products that are in the same niche.

You just have to remember that while it might be more work to initially set up upsells, downsells and the like, you can believe they will work on auto-pilot, continually making you more money than you might have with just the initial product you are selling.

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Technorati Tags: backends, downsells, online marketers, oto, sales funnell, upsell

Jan 25

Using Hot Words To Get Your Emails Opened

There are but a few days that go by that you don’t receive a flood of emails promoting the same launch, a new product or the latest giveaway. I bet you can about count the number of times you have gotten from several affiliate marketers the same promo email with the same subject title and hyped up sales copy.

Pretty soon you probably get tired of the same thing and have become immune to all of those daily email blast and you just automatically delete any duplicate emails that are trying to get your attention. And finally when you are irritated enough by these daily blast you are searching for the unsubscribe button as fast as you can find it. You know that link is somewhere at the bottom of the email.

So, as a marketer who is probably sending out the same email messages to your list, you are looking for only one requirement for success. Your emails have to stand out from all of the daily media blitz that is hitting in your subscriber’s email and actually get them to open and read it. If your emails are one of the ones that get lost in the shuffle and deleted, your business could get deleted with it.

You should be looking for some techniques and hot words you could use in your email titles to increase the chances of your emails getting opened. It is up to you as a marketerto know what emails are getting opened and which ones are not. It would not be good business sense to be using techniques or words that are not getting the job done, that is, getting your emails opened and read.

You can start by keeping your subject line short and focused. You want to try to not let your title run off the right side. This could look sloppy and unprofessional and could get your message cut off in the middle. Those hot words you want to use will not be so hot if they are not on the page when your readers are viewing the lists of emails recently received. Some of the more successful marketers usually recommend an email title of say no more than 50 or so characters.

Here are a few words that have to be a proven hot, magnetic attraction to those readers seeking a bargain or information from you.

“Free” is always a very attractive and hot, emotional word for an email subject line. Everyone is always searching for useful products for free. Look at your own hard drive and search your folders for all of the free info products you have collected that have not been opened for a long time. “Something For Nothing” will also get a strong look of curiosity from your readers. There are a lot of people that will tell you that using “free” will have your emails destined for the spam trap, but I have seen a good many that have made there way to my inbox with that word causing no problems.

And how about “Easy?” A good many people, including Internet marketers, would love to use a process or piece of software that won’t require a lot of work. From a marketer’s mindset, having to spend a large amount of time learning new software would be considered wasteful. In a marketer’s view, time is money and a difficult process will be dumped. But if you say it is easy, by all means make sure that it is.

Also, working either of these hot words, “You” or “Your” into the subject line, Will help to emotionally bring your email right down to the reader. It tends to make your email personal and not perceived as hype. An even better thought, would be to use their name if you can. Everyone wants to feel special and important to the marketers they deal with online. You would never want to let your subject lines or your salutations look like this: [Name...]. If you do that you might as well address it to “Hey You!”

A few other power words that can attract attention and have a reasonable chance to get opened are : “Guaranteed,” “New,” “Proven,” and “Uncovered.” These are also emotional hooks that can make you feel safe if you buy them or are about to get your hands on something few others have.

There are many more hot words that can grab readers when they see their email messages. A good thing you could do is to start your own file of the words that have grabbed you for future reference. Just watch out that you don’t trigger the spam police. Just go and do your own investigating and then use the best ones that are not looked at as being spammy.

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Technorati Tags: emails, hot words titles, internet marketers, online business

Jan 24

PowerStart 2010 Price Increase

I have mentioned the importance of having a mentor and what they can do to help you advance your business. If you find the right one, someone to point you in the right direction and to help you get over that hump it could be a big benefit to you.

In an earlier post , I told you about what having a mentor can do for you. Well, if this is your year to break out and really get to that next level. Or to even get started and be shown the right way to go, this is your opportunity.

Doug Champigny is ready to be that person for you. Doug has been in the business for a few years and can show you the right way to get set up and going for your online business. He has seen a lot in his years on the Internet and wants to share it with you.

PowerStart 2010 is your chance to aet that business up and going. This is an intense four week training Doug will be doing starting February 1. Each week you will get with others for some real internet training and be given weekly assignments to help online.

This is not for the faint of heart. You will actually be doing that dirty four letter word, WORK. But I know if you are willing to put in the effort you will come out knowing what you want to do and will be shown how to do it.

Monday is the last day to sign up for the February class and to get the discount. The March session will increase by $200. So if ever there was a time you wanted to get into the online world and learn from an experienced Internet Marketer, now is the time to jump in.

Be sure to check out PowerStart 2010 and get some invaluable experience as an Internet Marketer. And learn form one of the best.

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Technorati Tags: doug champigny, Internet Marketing, internet training, mentor, powerstart 2010

Jan 24

Are You Ready For The Halftime Sale

I am not to sure how many of you are aware of Bob Jenkins alias Bob The Teacher. He is a wonderful guy always wanting to lend a helping hand and encouraging you to fulfill your dreams, whatever they may be.

I met Bob at an Internet Conference a few years ago when he was still a school teacher. He had a product online that I can say kind of nudged me to get involved with IM. He was a very generous guy with his time then as he is now.

He was very happy as a school teacher and even then he was showing and helping people, school teachers especially, how to develop another income stream. So, I was quite surprised and happy when he announced that he was giving up the classroom to become an internet marketer. Still a teacher but with a bigger classroom.

But here was a real life example for those of us either new to the business or wanting to advance in the business that it was possible to do this. Now, he is a successful coach and teacher and I would encourage anyone wanting to find out about him to look him up, on the internet. A great guy to follow.

A very interesting thing he has been doing for the last few years is his Halftime Sale that he runs during the Super Bowl. He will take some products easily valued at $97 or more and let the halftime score determine the price of the products.

What you might ask! Here is an example:

Now you can not beat a deal like that. And these are not cheesy products either, but things you can use in or advance your business.

The big game is February 7, boy don’t get me started about that, football in February, so you better get over and get signed up while you are thinking about it. Don’t worry though I will be reminding you. Go over and see what you have a chance to purchase. It is a lot of fun and just think about a 0-0 halftime score, sorry Bob.

Go sign up NOW ==> Halftime Sale

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Technorati Tags: bob the teacher, football, halftime sale, internet marketer, super bowl

Jan 23

Ways To Get Free Traffic To Your Website Or Blog

Alright, you have gone through the traumatic act of setting up a website or blog, well congratulations! Now, let’s put in some content, add your product link or affiliate link, added an awesome header banner and now you are ready to make some money. So, what is your next step? We need to get traffic to the site so people can see it. And before we start paying for traffic we want some free traffic.

There are many ways to generate traffic, here are a few that have shown to be worthy:

Article Marketing – You can start writing articles and submitting them to article directories, especially Ezine Articles. Be sure you add in your keywords to your title and the article but be sure not to “stuff” it. You will also need an attention grabbing bio and a call to action.

Tip – You can keep track on where your articles are going by using Google Alerts. If you find that they are being published regularly on a well-ranked blog, try asking the site owner if they would like to have you send directly to their in-bin whenever you write one.

Blog Posting – Here is a standard, write and post, write and post and include your keywords for SEO purposes. It can be a challenge to do this regularly but you will be rewarded if you do. And by blogging you are providing a platform for affiliate marketing because it allows you to do product reviews as well as quality posts that can help establish that relationship of trust and can brand you as an expert.

Twitter – Whenever you send an article to EZA they can tweet the title and a link to it. Also with sending an autoresponder message through Aweber or adding a picture to TwitPic. By building up your targeted followers, Twitter can be very beneficial as a free traffic source.

Yahoo Answers – Yes, even using this method is a great way to not only get traffic but could get you branded as an expert. Just by answering questions in your area of expertise and giving value packed answers. You can even add your link as the reference material.

Guest Blogging – This has become a very popular way to get traffic. If you can write an interesting and value packed post, then you might consider offering your services to some high ranking blogs in exchange for being able to add your site link to your post. If they like you maybe they would let you be a guest blogger for the week. Another way where this will not cost you any money and could get you lots of new readers to your site.

Tip – This may not be something to do with the Gurus, unless you have a personal relationship with them. Try to ask marketers you have established relationships with. And know that summer is when they are most willing, and in fact eager, to have a guest blogger post for them.

Forums – Be on the look out for forums in your niche and be sure to join the ones with lots of traffic. Go ahead and answer questions, give some feedback and make yourself useful in these forums. Again, be sure to leave your link in your signature line, if they allow it. You will find that people will build a relationship with you, see that you know what you are talking about and want to visit your site.

You must remember with using any of these resources that you must be legitimate and not spam people. When wanting to get involved with any of these sources, read the rules! Then you can have a look around and get a feel for what is acceptable (the unwritten rules). People will know if you come across as to pushy or spammy and then you will find out you have done yourself much more harm than good.

These are but a few of the many resources that can be used to generate more traffic to your website or blog. I have covered but a few of the more popular ones. If you have a special one that you use let us know about it.

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Technorati Tags: article marketing, blog, ezine articles, forums, guest blogging, gurus, ways to get free traffic, website, yahoo answers

Jan 18

Let AIDA Help Improve Your Sales

As you see all the ebooks, short reports and videos everywhere on the Internet, all promoting the Big Bang that will have your checking accounts overflowing with cash, it is a miracle that a newbie to Internet Marketing can figure anything out.

To be sure, you have to write compelling sales copy in order to grab your website visitors and make them stay on your page long enough to click on your “Buy Now” button. But you have not been told about the simple four-step process that will do that for you.

There is a simple acronym created a long time ago in direct sales that you can use to remind you about the four stages of the sales process.

* A = Attention
* I = Interest
* D = Desire
* A = Action

Studies have shown you have just a few seconds to grab your visitor’s attention and keep them reading your sales copy. So, the first thing you must do is grab their attention and keep them there.

If you have a good headline that asks a question or generates some curiosity in their mind, that can be a good start. You might use a strong, bright font and a strong statement in your headline. Something that will command attention as soon as anyone lands on your sales page.

Some good examples: “Are You Being Lied To?” or “Have You Found The Secret Formula For Success?” Addressing your viewer’s problems is a classic attention grabber.

And when you have their attention, you have to stimulate interest in what you are trying to say, which should be related to the question that got them this far. If that product you are selling is the solution to that problem you have in your headline, start giving them reasons your product will help your visitors. And get right to the point. Leave that fluff and hype behind because you don’t have time.

You can always find lots of advice about listing the benefits of owning your products and that advice is not bad. So make it easy, the benefits can be the solutions to problems and the answer to the question asked in your headline. Your readers want to know, WIIFT, what’s in it for them.

The scarcity or risk of not buying or subscribing in time and losing a good deal can also help create that desire. They might think of how they’ll lose a great opportunity to make money and will be stuck in the same old place while others get ahead. The scarcity method is used a lot like by stating that the price will double in some time frame, like tomorrow or “in the next few hours.” If there is a belief in the value of owning your product, you will have created desire.

If you are using testimonials, they are a very powerful way of creating trust and the feeling that your product must be useful if all those people bought it and liked it. Testimonials just might put the icing on the cake for the reader. As a side not, be sure to stay within the guidelines of the FTC rules with testimonials. No claims of unbelievable earnings should be made.

Now with that attention-grabbing headline catching their curiosity and you have generated strong interest in how your product or service will solve a problem or make their life easier, you will have your readers motivated to take some action when they reach your “Buy Now” button.

A simple way to help them make up their mind is to just ask for the sale. Others repeat the benefits of ownership, but phrase them as questions.

I know you have read those questions at the bottom of OTO pages that ask, “Are you sure you want to leave this page and never get this chance to create a steady income?” That is an emotionally charged question that reinforces the need to buy before leaving the page.

If you are using this correctly, AIDA techniques can be powerful enough to generate sales for you and you will want to make sure you perfect your sales copy.

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Technorati Tags: eBooks, products, sales copy, short reports, videos

Jan 16

Google Tools To Help You Boost Your Traffic And Conversions

If you want to make money from your website, you have to drive traffic all day and night and then convert that traffic to sales. Consider your conversion rate as a key ingredient to your success or lack of it. Without the ability to first drive traffic, then convert viewers to buyers, your Internet business will not be successful.

You can use Google with their full complement of free tools to help you maximize your websites and to even start testing and comparing different marketing campaigns. There are even tools to show how worldwide trends might affect your business.

Having a good plan can be the first step in your personal marketing campaign. These steps help assure you do the important steps in the right order and for the right reasons. Here is a list of planning tools that Google has to offer to help you get it right:

- Insights For Search (http://www.google.com/insights/search)

This tool lets you search patterns and compare the results across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties. Some very powerful benefits of Insight For Search is the capacity to narrow the data you want to specific categories that will let you foresee the possible future demand in your niche.

- Search-based Keyword Tool (http://www.google.com/sktool/#)

Use this tool for generating keyword and relevant ideas for your landing pages that are specific to your website. You can also pinpoint opportunities for additional additions to your AdWords campaigns. One aspect of this tool that might be of major benefit to your marketing is its ability to modify the keywords and other data to give you additional information from your language or country settings.

If you drop the “#” in the URL above, you will be sent to a page with helpful articles in a FAQ.

- Google’s Ad Planner (http://www.google.com/adplanner)

All marketers want to know which websites or data will attract their niche target audience. Google Ad Planner can help you do that after you create a list of sites with specific criteria, like location, audience, current demographics and selected language.

With your returned data, you can review the traffic and key data for each site, which will be critical to your decision-making about advertising possibilities. That data will help you identify the websites your target audience would be likely to visit.

- Google Webmaster Tools (http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/)

This storehouse of helpful free tools will give you detailed reports about how visible your pages are on Google. You will be able to see how the Google spiders crawl through your site and how Google indexes what it finds there. Knowing how Google looks at your site would be very valuable to your future plans, wouldn’t it?

Another benefit of using Google Webmaster Tools is the reports you get about the internal and external links to your site and which search inquiries result in driving traffic to your site. You can also see how your users got to your site.

As you go through and begin to use these valuable tools, these should help to give you a boost with converting viewers to buyers for your marketing campaigns. You could find yourself making smarter decisions about what to do and what not to do. This will help you to know how your viewers are getting to your site.

With Google providing these important tools, this should help determine how to best get ready to take on that increase traffic that will be coming to your sites.

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Technorati Tags: google, google spiders, google tools internet marketing, internet business, traffic

Jan 13

Autoresponders Broadcasts And Follow Ups Messages

Just about anyone can be setting up an autoresponder account. There are even step-by-step tutorials as well as videos that can guide you through the process. It will make you feel awful good when you get it all set up and have created your first sign up form. Then you have to try and decide if you should send out a follow up message or a broadcast email. What is the difference between the two and when should you use one over the other?

Usually as you are setting up each of your list you create (and there will be a lot!) you will probably want to start with setting up a sequence of follow up emails. Later on you will be sending out broadcasts.

How about Follow ups
As you build your list through say a free opt-in giveaway, you will then begin sending out follow up messages to try to establish a relationship with your list. They have to get to know you and trust you. You should give them a little personal information and a lot of valuable niche information.

You can also use follow up messages to send out an ecourse and you will be able to deliver membership goodies. They are also used to promote products when timeliness regarding the product is not an issue. You could maybe give a short report to your list that is related to the product. Then how about setting up a sequence of seven follow up emails that can address problems or questions that can point to the bigger product you are promoting.

Now about Broadcasts
When you feel there is something that is ready right now or will be shortly or need to get out a quick message, send it as a broadcast. Most marketers use broadcasts to promote the latest and greatest products, especially if they’re part of a big JV launch.

Broadcast can also be used for email swaps where you and another marketer give away each other’s free product in order to build your respective lists.

As you load up your autoresponders for follow up emails, make sure they are timeless, evergreen I think is the new term. See, now if you are sending a broadcast email today and you are talking about the lovely summer weather because it’s summer, that’s fine. But you can not talk about the current weather, current politics or a current celebrity scandal in your preloaded follow up emails because your future subscribers may not join your list right away and they’ll be able to tell your email was written a while ago.

Also you might think about the time issue in your emails when you promote products. Try not to talk about a “newly released” or “brand new” product in your follow up emails because some people will be signing up for your list a whole year from now. Will that same product be new by the time they get to that preloaded email? No. They might buy it and feel cheated or lose trust in you when they figure out it’s been around for a while.

There are a few autoresponder companies out there. The important thing you must remember about all of the companies is how is there reliability in delivering your emails. That reliability and deliverability are very important for your business. If your customers can’t hear from you they will find others who will stay in touch with them.

Cost should not be a factor when you choose your autoresponder. A cheap autoresponder does not guarantee that your messages will get out. Two of the better companies out there right now are Aweber and Get Response. I use Aweber myself and I can say I have had no problems with them.

So just remember, both types of emails have their function and if you think about how you are using each, you can use both types very effectively to your advantage.

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Technorati Tags: autoresponder, aweber, broadcast emails, emails, follow up emails, get response