What does monetization look like in YOUR business?
This is the topic in Sean Mize’s latest email to me and he went on to say:
Sometimes I feel like when I see folks working on their business . . . they don’t know WHY they are doing what they are doing.
They don’t have a purpose . . .a big why . . a why what they are doing is changing lives.
Or they have that, but they are just doing parts in their business . . .but nothing fits together.
They are writing articles . . . but they aren’t pointing them to the right places.
They create one product, and somehow think it will do the work of 100.
They send out sales emails when they see something converting well . . but rarely send out training emails to improve lives.
Ok, I’ll tell you my business model for years:
Irresistible offer in the form of a squeeze page that gives them something valuable –> daily email (like this) to teach and to train –> create products or trainings that change lives and sell those trainings –> create more training and sell it –> create more training and sell it
Of course, one effective part of my business is creating training I put on Warrior Plus, people promote it and tell others . . .and those buyers join my list. So those are buyer subscribers. And I have a mix of both on my list.
And the KEY to having people buy from you again and again is that they learn from you when they buy once – then they WANT to learn again and again.
So . . what about you? What does monetization look like in YOUR business?
When you look at your model of monetization, does it make sense?
Is it working?
What needs to change to make it work better?
In case you missed it, notice how simple this business model is.
It consists of the following simple actions carried out consistently, day after day:
A squeeze page and free offer to create a list
A daily email to the list
Creating a new product that improves other peoples lives
A sales letter
Driving traffic to the sales letter from:
the list by email
Warrior Special Offers i.e. taking advantage of the traffic already on the Warrior Forum
Rinse & Repeat
So what does monetisation look like in YOUR business?
In this article about how to build a buyers list, I want to show you how to build a buyers list by using other people’s product promotions.
Why should we want to build a buyers list rather than a list created by offering a free offer?
The simple answer is that a buyers list will generate more sales than a list consisting of freebie seekers.
Of course, the initial conversion rate will be lower if you are asking your visitors to buy something (i.e. more visitors to a freebie squeeze page will optin) but you will be building a higher quality list.
Of course, a buyers list is usually created by selling your own products but it is possible to create a buyers list from other people’s products.
Here are two possible strategies:
Strategy 1
In this strategy, you first find a product to promote – preferably one you already know about and like.
Usually, the promoter will be offering a discount so you need to take note of the key elements of the offer including the discount.
Next create related bonuses that you can offer to incentivise someone to buy the affiliate product through your affiliate link.
Using these elements, create an affiliate promo page and preferably post it somewhere that already has targeted traffic such as the classified ads on a niche specific forum site.
When the potential buyer clicks on the buy button on the promo offer page it takes the visitor through to a pre-checkout page which reaffirms the key points of the offer and tells the buyer to return to this page to input their email address and payment ID to claim their bonus.
The buy button on this page has your affiliate link through to the affiliate offer.
In short, this is the system:
Find a product to promote
Create or find your offer-related bonuses
Find a place to post the affiliate promo page
Create the affiliate promo page
Create the pre-checkout page
Set-up the web optin form and deliver the bonus with your first email or send to a download page with further affiliate offers on it.
Send further offers and valuable content to your buyers email list to maintain your relationship and garner further sales.
There is a purpose built wordpress theme for creating your affiliate promo page with a 3 step process for your buyers to follow – I own this theme and it is excellent for this strategy but you will still have to find a way of sending traffic to your promo page to make it work:
Strategy 2
Find new upcoming product launches using a site like Muncheye and contact the product vendor and offer his/her buyers a relavent free bonus within the download page or membership site.
The product vendor has more value to offer to buyers and you get their buyers on your list when they claim your free bonus. This is a win/win!
The system in short is:
Identify upcoming product launches
Create or find high-value related bonuses.
Approach the product vendor and say that you are willing to promote their product launch as an affiliate and could you also offer their buyers your free product-related bonus within their download area.
If the vendor agrees, send him the free offer copy and image to put his download area with a link to your optin page where his buyers can claim their bonus and then deliver the bonus after optin
Send further offers and valuable content to your buyers email list to maintain your relationship and garner further sales.
Conclusion
Both these strategies are simple, proven systems for creating buyers lists using other people’s product offers as the primary offer source.
Finding relevant bonuses to offer is not difficult if you either look around your hard disc or purchase a high-quality PLR product for a few dollars. Bonuses can be re-used with other promotions so the costs can be spread.
Hopefully, these two strategies show you how to build a buyers list through using simple strategies.
You may be asking yourself what is a good squeeze page conversion rate?
The truth is that this is a bit like asking ‘how long is a piece of string’ because there are a number of critical factors that will influence the conversion rate of any particular squeeze page:
Quality of the traffic
The ‘quality’ of the visitors coming to your squeeze page is definitely an important factor. Have they been properly profiled and targeted as prospects for what you have to offer?
Are they coming to your squeeze page on the recommendation of someone they trust, like a JV or solo ad?
Have they been pre-qualified somewhere else by reading your book or an article you wrote or watching a video or listening to your podcast?
If they are simply random visitors to your site versus highly targeted traffic, then you can expect entirely different conversion rates.
Quality of the offer
One of the top internet marketers says that the quality of the offer is much more important than copywriting.
If your offer is irresistible then it doesn’t really matter if you are a poor copywriter and your script has several typos.
Visitors will always optin to get your offer if it is attractive enough so concentrate on solving a problem that everyone has in your niche and you will be golden.
Quality of the copywriting & page design
Once you have selected your offer, presenting it in the most effective way is also important to your conversion rate.
Your squeeze page headline will be critical to conversion rates. Does it invoke curiosity? Does it create a ‘pattern interrupt’ in the mind of the visitor such that they have to satisfy their curiosity?
Does it address a pain or fear that they are experiencing or offer an irresistible benefit that they are searching for?
Is the design of the page appealing, easy to read and have an image of what you are offer such as a book cover or product mock-up?
Clarity and simplicity are usually the key to success – your visitor needs to immediately understand what you are offering and it has to be highly relevant to the reason that bought them to your squeeze page in the first place.
There really needs to be no distractions on the page that will encourage the visitor to click away from your offer.
Quality of your testing
Once you start getting results from your squeeze page you have a ‘control’ result that you can then use as a benchmark for split-testing alternative squeeze pages to see if you can improve on your conversion results.
In reality, many marketers split-test right from the start and keep trying to improve on their best results. There are plenty of plugins and tools that can help you with this process
Quality of your lead capture process
The quality of the lead capture process is also important.
For example, conversions usually reduce the more information you ask your visitor to input which is why many marketers normally just ask for an email address.
On the other hand the quality of the optin may increase if your visitor is willing to offer more information to demonstrate their commitment to what you have to offer i.e. aim for quality versus quantity.
Exit pop-ups may also improve your conversion rate by making an alternative offer to your visitor before they leave.
Retargeting visitors to your page by using a retargeting pixel to enable you to bring your visitors back to your offer at a later date may also improve your ultimate conversions from traffic.
Other marketers use a two-step optin process to improve conversions.
All these processes need to be tested to find the optimal formula for maximum conversions. Sometimes simply split-testing two radically different offers is the best way to start.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are a number of factors that determine what a good conversion rate is for any particular situation.
I suppose the best answer is that any conversion rate is good if you are able to make more money than you are spending on traffic generation because this will enable you to stay in business long enough to improve your conversion rates through testing.
Some marketers can get 70 or 80% conversion rates because they are driving quality targeted traffic to a good offer whilst others will get only 10 or 20%.
Determining ‘what is a good squeeze page conversion rate’ for your particular offer will be mainly determined by the factors discussed above, namely:
I thought that I could offer Easy Web Page Graphics as an upsell and a lesson on Photoshop Actions as a downsell to demonstrate how I created these dramatic images.
I hope you like my demo squeeze pages – please feel free to comment below.
Have you ever considered list building with Kindle? I’ve just read about this strategy and it sounds very interesting to me because the KDP Select program gives you the ability to enroll your books in a Free Book Promotion i.e. Amazon will get the traffic for you.
If you include links to your squeeze page inside your ebook then you will be able to build a list of people interested in the topic in your book. For example, you could offer a bonus tip or a video tutorial in the book for people who sign up to your list.
As your ebook can be only 2,500 words long, it would be relatively easy to build up a library of books on Kindle.
If you also made all your books in a related niche, you could also cross-sell your other books to existing customers.
Once you have enough books on Kindle, you could be earning a very nice passive income from Kindle.
You may even pre-launch your book in a Forum like the Warrior Special Offers Forum before transferring the book to Kindle so you get access to two market places. (To enable you to charge a little more on the Warrior Forum, you could include the additional bonus content mentioned above because the reader is already on your list, thereby making your book more complete and valuable.)
All the tools for creating and launching this strategy are essentially free if you use a text editor like Google Docs or Open Office. Kindle includes a cover creator so you are golden from start to finish!
I am definitely going to try this strategy as I have a lot of ebooks that I have written on my hard disc.
You may be thinking that you couldn’t possibly write a book. If this is you, then why not head over to a PLR site, buy a PLR book and then totally rewrite the content to make it your own.
Alternatively, buy several books on the topic and mash up the content, or indeed head over to Ezine Articles and research your content there.
Or how about taking some of your blog posts and mashing up a book from content that you have already written – a little bit of editing and you could quickly create something very valuable for others to consume – particularly if you plan your blog content in advance so that a series of blog posts creates a coherent whole.
Using a mind-map to map out the structure of your content is a quick way to sort out your chapter headings and the points to be covered in each chapter.
(WARNING: Do not be tempted to use PLR content, or plagiarize other peoples content, which has not been radically altered, on Kindle! You must make your book unique and original!)
If you could pump out one book a day, then you would quickly build traffic to your squeeze page whilst at the same time earning cash from your book sales.
Once you have built up a whole series of books, you would then be able to create one large book – a compendium of your micro-ebooks – and sell that on Amazon.
List building with Kindle is a great strategy for aspiring internet marketers.
It’s important to have a system or routine when building your list.
That’s why I’m sharing mine – it may just help you.
Step #1 –
I start my day by checking my stats for the previous day. I can get immediate feedback on number of clicks, optins and sales through my link tracker.
This is important because it MOTIVATES me to take further action, and that action is influenced by what is working best for me already. (Try to avoid taking any action that you can’t measure – measuring the results of your actions is critically important to your success – you must, must, must find a way to do it!)
Step #2 –
I open up my auto-responder and create my daily follow-up and broadcast emails. Sending value and promoting products is how my business makes money so I need to do this and get good at it. (I track all the links I put in my emails so I can see what is working – see Step #1 above.)
One of the most helpful products on email marketing is Lee Murray’s Email Slick – it pays to invest time in getting good at email marketing.
Step #3 –
I make sure that I implement AT LEAST one traffic strategy each day.
In truth this is where you need to spend 80 to 90% of your time if you want to build your list quickly.
Again track all your links to see which traffic sources work best.
Step #4 –
Research affiliate offers and apply for affiliate links. (If you are are PRO member of List Spark (see below), the research part has been carried out for you.)
You need to do this in advance to ensure that you have offers to put into your daily emails to your list (- it may take time to get approved as an affiliate for some products so you need to plan out your promotions schedule in advance.)
Step #5 –
Ideally you should be creating your own products/content to offer to your list – these can be free or paid offers or a combo of the two.
Preferably your products need to be part of an extended sales funnel but it quite OK to build your sales funnel over time i.e. get your squeeze page converting and then add an upsell and a downsell and then later add another offer on if those are converting.
One of my biggest mistakes in the past was trying to create products that were too big, and therefore difficult, to make and consume. I advise creating products that can be consumed in one hour or less i.e. concentrate on quality rather than quantity.
Step #6 –
If you rinse and repeat this 6-step process daily, I don’t think that you will go too far wrong 🙂
This daily list building routine may seem too simple to you but I promise that if you can execute this simple SYSTEM with focus, you will be doing a lot better than 95% of the IMers out there!
If you need help implementing this, then my top suggestion is to join the FREE viral list building system called List Spark. Most of the work involved in setting up squeeze pages, sales funnels, researching offers and link tracking is done for you and you get video training on how to drive traffic too.
I will also support you with my follow-up email sequence where I reveal some more traffic tactics.
List Spark is where you can put the above daily list building routine to great use and I recommend it highly because it is working like gang-busters for me.
List Spark is an all-in-one viral email list building system. It combines absolutely everything you need in order to start making money online. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never made a dime online, you don’t have any money to invest, you have no previous experience in the field and that you have no clue how to run an online business.
List Spark contains everything you need to start your home-based business.
The best part is – you can get started without spending a single cent.
That’s right!
You can choose between two membership levels:
List Spark Standard (100% free, and always will be)
List Spark PRO ($19.95 / month)
In order to get started with List Spark you will need an email autoresponder. Currently List Spark supports AWeber and GetResponse. I recommend using AWeber (you can sign up for their 30 day trial for only $1), or if you want to go for 100% free approach you can register with Get Response and get their 30 day trial (no payment or credit card required).
Inside List Spark you will find everything:
Squeeze pages ready to be used (to build your email subscriber list)
Training how to drive traffic (both paid and free traffic)
Software that will allow you to get access to hundreds of thousands of high quality clicks
Support that will give you a hand if something is not clear
Cloud hosting – for ultra fast and reliable pages
Link tracking software to monitor your marketing campaigns
I joined List Spark today – this is a 100% free viral list building system with an optional PRO membership on the back-end. This is my initial List Spark review.
I was introduced to List Spark by Ed Newman, one of my online colleagues, who I know is very good at list building. He tells me that List Spark is working well for him right now.
When you join List Spark for free, before you can start building a list for yourself you have to bring 5 subscribers to the person who brought you in to List Spark. After you have brought in 5 subscribers, you have bought your way into the free system (see what you get below) and all other subscribers are yours and they too will build your list exponentially.
After you bring in 5 subscribers – you are going to start getting viral traffic as well! Every subscriber you bring after that will need to bring you 5 subscribers before they can start using the system.
If you are a List Spark PRO member you can get commissions as well! If you are a free member – if someone decides to upgrade their account to PRO, you will NOT receive commissions (they will be passed through to the person above you which is a major reason why you should get a PRO membership).
With List Spark PRO you will be able to make money WHILE you build your list. Not only that, they will teach you how you can be using multiple streams of income (affiliate marketing, selling solo ads, ad swaps etc) to make money with your email subscriber list.
List Spark Standard Membership (Free in return for 5 subscribers)
Proven to convert squeeze pages – tested with conversion stats shown. They include optional exit pop-ups as well!
New squeeze pages are provided monthly.
Conversion numbers are shown in real time
Training on list building topics – especially how to drive free and paid traffic
Link Tracker to track how well your traffic is converting
Support
Viral leads
List Spark Pro Membership ($19.95 p.m.)
Pro training (advanced strategies – affiliate marketing, selling solo ads etc)
Power emails daily – new high-converting products to promote with unique email swipes are provided daily.
Unlock the List Spark Sales Funnel (i.e. you get 90% of $19.95 p.m.) – with List Spark Standard/Free you can only collect subscribers, but with List Spark PRO you can make money while you are building a subscriber list. Every time your subscriber decides to upgrade to PRO you will get 90% of $19.95 monthly charge. If your free subscribers are making sales – those sales are getting passed to you! So you will be making sales even when you will not be driving any traffic at all!
Unlock system – don’t have to send the first 5 subscribers to the person that introduced you. Every subscriber (and buyer) will be yours to keep!
I have purchased PRO membership because I think this is a great system for getting paid to build your list.
Once you are set-up on List Spark you need to generate traffic to the squeeze pages that they provide.
You can either use free traffic sources or paid ones – but which methods to use?
Here are the pros and cons of each general method but in reality you will probably have both types of traffic generation running and track the effectiveness of each campaign using the excellent List Spark link tracker that is provided for free.
you can get started with your list building completely free of charge
you get free high-converting squeeze pages that are updated regularly (and the sales funnel if you get Pro membership)
you can easily monitor your numbers using their free link tracking tool
it builds your list virally – it’s a very leveraged way of building a list.
one of the problems with email marketing is finding and researching good products to promote and then writing the email campaigns – this is all done for you if you get PRO membership. This is a true copy-paste money making solution.
if you want to generate traffic to your squeeze page by buying solo ads (traffic is the ‘spark’ needed to get the viral system working), there is a very useful solo ad vendor rolodex included in the PRO membership which normally costs $47
The List Spark system reminds me of the MLM business model i.e. it gets other people to help you to build your business using the viral list building system. At the moment the system is built for the ‘make money online’ niche but it could be adapted for other niches if you ignore the power emails provide in the PRO system and simply plug in your own email campaigns.
If you join List Spark through my link, I will share my list building strategies and results with you – in particular which traffic sources I am using.
Every online business needs to build a list and the 100% free viral list building system that is List Spark is a very clever way to leverage your list building efforts.
In this article I will discuss how to build your list of subscribers quickly and why this must be your absolute #1 priority as a business.
The business of internet marketing is about putting people onto lists, sending them emails and them clicking on the links in our emails, purchasing products and services that we recommend, in return for which we receive money/commissions.
The important thing is to focus on list building as your goal – the size and quality of your list is key to the size of your income and success.
Building a list is simply a question of maths.
It requires traffic/visitors to a your website or landing page to click on an offer (free or paid) to join your list and for you to then follow-up with them to develop a relationship and make offers.
The number and quality of subscribers you get onto your list depends upon a number of variables:
the volume and QUALITY of traffic i.e. how targeted it is for your offer
the conversion % of your landing page(s) (which can be increased by testing variables)
the quality of relationship that you develop in the follow-up process.
These are the key metrics that Ryan Deiss works on:
$1 per subscriber per month i.e. 1,000 subscribers = $1,000 per month
20% email open rate = 200 opens 30% Click Through Rate from his emails = 60 clicks
@$1EPC = $60 x 4 emails per week = $240 per week
There are 4 weeks in a month = $960 per month from a list of 1,000 subscribers
These metrics give you a guideline to work to. In practice, the numbers will vary from niche to niche and marketer to marketer so they are merely a useful ‘rule of thumb’
So how do we get, say, 1,000 subscribers?
We first need to offer ‘something’ to a subscriber in return for their email address – either free or paid. The offer needs to be relevant to the reason they visited your web page.
(Having a free offer is not an essential pre-requisite for list building – you might simply have a squeeze page with a headline that piques the visitors curiosity and then redirects them straight to the sales page of an affiliate offer e.g. ‘This guy generated 1,000 subscribers in 2 hours at zero cost – register to find out how’ – as soon as the visitor opts in they are redirected to a sales page with that headline to their main offer.)
If we make a good squeeze page, we could convert perhaps 30%/40%/50% or more of our targeted traffic to subscribers (compared to perhaps only 5-10% if the offer is a good paid one to warm targeted traffic.)
Most marketers choose to make a free offer and then immediately follow this up with one or more paid offers in a sales funnel, supported by a follow-up email marketing campaign to maximise conversions.
Another popular tactic in the internet marketing niche is to make free and paid offers via the Warrior Special Offers Forum, which naturally has a lot of people looking for information in that niche. This can be supported by affiliate traffic i.e. affiliates drive traffic to your offer in return for a commission.
If you are driving traffic to your blog, the number of subscribers may depend upon:
the quality of your content
whether you are asking for their email address frequently throughout your blog – sidebar, in page, footer, header, in content links, exit etc
what you are offering in return for their email address
the quality of the traffic to your website i.e. how targeted it is
Conversion %
Conversion percentages are driven by a number of factors:
how targeted your traffic is
the relationship and emotions, you can create with that traffic
the quality of the offer
how much information you ask for at optin – you will get better conversions asking just for an email address than asking for more complete details like name, address and telephone number (although leads that do give this information may be more qualified and therefore more likely to convert to a sale.)
the clarity of your offer i.e. no confusion.
the quality of your copywriting – why it’s important (the hook), what it does for them (benefits), how they can do it and where they can get it NOW!
the optin mechanics and how frequently you ask for the optin – pop-overs, two-step optins, exit popups, page load speed etc
the size and quality of your sales funnel – you can increase conversions by making a variety of different offers in your sales funnel. (I include your follow-up email marketing as being a part of your sales funnel strategy.)
testing and tweaking your offer pages with A/B or multivariate testing.
Defining Your Target
Throughout this post I mention the need for ‘targeted’ traffic. This means that you must have some understanding of:
who you are targeting – demographics, newbies/intermediate advanced etc
where you can get these people from e.g. Facebook advertising, solo ads, Warrior Forum, etc If you cannot identify where to get targeted traffic from then you have a problem and may need to reassess your entire list building strategy.
why your offer is attractive to them – does it entertain, educate or solve a problem for them?
The more focused and defined your market is, and the more you understand it, the more likely it is that you can make an offer to appeal to that particular market. It is difficult to get good conversions by trying to appeal to everyone.
Earnings Per Click
This is an important metric for all internet marketers. Affiliates may not mail your offer to their lists if they cannot earn $1 or $1.50 per click minimum on average from your offer.
If you are offering only 50% commission, the affiliate only gets $0.50 per click which may not be sufficient for them to mail their list. You can rectify that by offering 100% commission on the basis that you may be able to earn commissions either from the offers made in the immediate sales funnel or from email marketing.
Earnings per click = sales revenue, divided by the number clicks or unique visitors to the sales page i.e. if sales revenue is $2,000 from 2,000 unique visitors that is $1 per click.
If you want to make a profit, the cost per click (CPC) needs to be lower than the earnings per click (EPC).
When you know your EPC, you also know how much you can afford to pay for traffic. Traffic does not become a problem when you can achieve higher EPC’s than your competitors because it means you can afford to pay more for your traffic.
If you are offering your products through a sales platform like JVZoo or Warrior Plus then your metrics (other than CPC) are calculated for you and it is easy to monitor your conversions and EPC. Alternatively you can use Google Analytics or paid services like MyClickBoss, Hypertracker, Adtrackz Gold, Quality Click Control etc.
The Purpose of Creating Your Own Products
When you create your own products, as opposed to just being an affiliate marketer, it puts you in the position of:
earning 100% from sales that you generate from your own traffic sources as well as building your list
you have potential for affiliate marketers to drive traffic to your product offer to generate profits and build your list
you control the terms of the offer – price, period of the offer, quantity offered etc
you have an asset you can leverage to grow your business further e.g. offer your product as an affiliate bonus to get more people on your list
If you do not have a product, then you need to master traffic generation so that you can earn a commission from other peoples products.
Ultimately, the best traffic strategy is to build your own list and then send them emails that direct them to whatever offer you wish. With your own list you have an asset that you can readily turn into cash.
Sources of Traffic
There are many sources of potential traffic but here are some of the most popular:
affiliate traffic i.e. other marketers drive traffic to your offer in return for a commission
forum traffic e.g. WSO or signature link in forum comments
list traffic – if you have an existing list you can email them to send them to your new offer
solo ads – drive solo ad traffic to a free offer then offer your paid product as an upsell
Facebook Ads – highly targeted – or other PPC traffic
banner advertising on niche websites
media buys – you can buy traffic from many media sites
ad swaps – I’ll mail for your offer if you mail for mine
adding your product as a bonus to another marketers download page or membership area – the buyer has to opt in to your list to get the bonus
video marketing – a lot of marketers do ‘launch jacking’ by ranking their videos for new product launches.
blog traffic
social media traffic
and so on…
If your product has a good EPC, you will find that traffic is relatively easy to attract or acquire.
You are Running A Business
In internet marketing it is easy to forget that you are running a business and that your ability to generate sales and profit is what will ultimately keep you in business.
This being the case, you need to run your business as a business i.e. monitor, tweak, tune and know your numbers – traffic volume by source, CPC, conversion %’s, EPC’s, # on your list, email open rates and click through rates, sales revenue, costs and profit.
Once you know your numbers, then you need to work on strategies for improving your numbers. If you can master the mindset of running your business by the numbers, then you will be well positioned to build your list of subscribers fast.
This article about the law of averages was inspired by a recording by Jim Rohn that randomly cropped up this morning when I was listening to my ipod whilst walking the dog.
If you do something often enough a ratio will appear.
It’s amazing.
Once a ratio starts, it tends to continue.
This information is hugely important to business success.
In baseball or cricket its called a ‘batting average’.
Talk to 10 people and you get one.
Talk to 10 more and get another one and so on.
If you get 9 out of 10 and I get 1 out 10, I can still compete with you.
How can that be?
If you talk to 10 people and get 9, I’ll talk to 100 people and get 10. I beat you.
You will learn more from losing than you do by winning.
I make up in numbers, I lack in skill.
Anybody can do this.
The law of averages can be increased.
The fourth time you talk to someone you get 2.
Why?
You’re getting better.
In baseball if you only hit 3 out of 10 balls you make $4m per year. That means that you can win big by missing 7 times out of 10!
It’s the same in internet marketing. I’ve found that from affiliate traffic, on average I can get a 10% conversion rate when I sell a digital product.
That means that 9 out of 10 visitors don’t buy!
Once you know these numbers you can work on strategies for increasing your conversion rate through strategies like split-testing, improving your sales funnel, using exit pop-ups etc.
The point is that you don’t have to ‘bat a thousand’ to make big money.
When recruiting people to his network marketing business, Jim Rohn knew he could recruit 3 out of 10 people.
His invitation to listen to his network marketing presentation went something like this:
‘I normally recruit 3 out of 10 people. I don’t mind if you come to my meeting as one of the 7 that don’t join. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you just listen. As one of my friends, I don’t want you saying in a years time, when you see my success, why didn’t you pick up the phone and call me and tell me about this opportunity. At least if you listen now I can say I gave you the opportunity.‘
The story of the sower from the bible & how it relates to the law of averages.
The sower was ambitious. He had excellent seed (opportunity).
The sower goes out to sow the seed, some fell by the wayside and the birds got some of the seed. (Some people will not make it to your meeting – the birds will get some.)
You have two options:
chase birds – if you do this, you will leave the field i.e. distract you from your main purpose.
or just say ‘Isn’t that interesting’ which is the preferred option.
The sower kept on sowing.
There are only 9 or 10 miserable people in the world – they move around a lot. When you bump into one, remind yourself that there only 9 more like you in the whole world (i.e. you need to be persistent in the face of adversity.)
Now the seed falls on rocky ground where the soil is shallow but it is not of your making.
The seed begins to grow but, with the first hot day, the seedling whithers.
(These are people that don’t show up to the second meeting.) The hot weather will get some – not an easy thing to watch.
Just say, ‘isn’t that interesting’ and don’t bother asking why.
Some just don’t stay or get put off by the first obstacle. You can’t change that – just take it as it comes.
If someone says ‘why does the sun come up in the east?‘ – don’t sign up for the ‘why is this’ class – it’s the law of averages!
He kept on sowing – he had to discipline his disappointment.
Some are not going to stay but in the normal course of things this is the way things are.
Some of the seed falls on thorny ground.
As the seed begins to grow, the thorns strangle the seedling. These are the little things that get in the way of making progress. Little things cheat people out of big opportunities. It’s just the way it is – like winter following fall.
The sower keeps sowing the seed.
Finally the seed falls on good ground
If you keep sowing ‘it always will’. Some of your ‘seed’ will fall on good people – it’s the law of averages working again!
Some of the good ground did 30%, some did 60% and some did 100%.
Why? Don’t sign up for that class – it just the way it is!
If you try to get the 30% to do 60%, you’ll just hit your head against a brick wall. Just let the 30% do 30% and 60% do 60%.
Learn the law of sowing and reaping because it directly relates to the law of averages and your success in life and internet marketing.
I am about to start list building with Optin Hurricane.
I have been exploring if there are better and faster methods for building a list. In the past I have relied upon SEO to drive traffic to my website and then had various optin or buying options on my website.
I have also built lists by launching info products on JVZoo and Warrior Plus where traffic has largely been driven by affiliates.
However, I wanted to find a way of creating a list faster through paid traffic but realised that, if I was going to pay for traffic, I needed a number of things in place:
a good sales funnel
analytics to measure conversions and ROI
split-testing to improve conversions
the means to recover traffic ‘leaks’ using exit popups
I bought a product called ‘Optin Hurricane‘ – The Secret Files’ that sets out a basic funnel for solo-ad traffic as follows:
To facilitate the building of this funnel I am using a plugin called Optin Hurricane which I have purchased and installed on my blog.
It is my intention that the front of my website will be this funnel and access to the content on my site will only be granted once someone has gone through my squeeze page.
The plugin knows when someone has already opted in or visited before and previous visitors can therefore be redirected to my blog.
There are a number of other features that make this plugin highly attractive:
Multiple Squeeze Page Styles
Multiple Backgrounds – images, videos or colours
Vertical & Horizontal Squeeze Page Formats
Built in Call To Action Buttons (but you can customise as well)
Diverse Engagement Effects – animated options
One Click Countdown Timers
Exit Pop Up Technology
Universal Auto-responder Integration
Mobile Optimized Squeeze Pages
FB Comment Functionality
Import/Export feature for pages
Add Footers, Menus & Disclaimers
GEO Targeting & Visitor Segmentation to allow only specific countries to visit pages to segment your list
Generate Free Traffic through viral features
Accurate Tracking – find out your squeeze page conversions, premium stats redirects, past visits and build multiple campaigns (- link tracking is built into the software too!)
Redirect Past Sign Ups
Redirect Past Visitors
These extensive features mean that I do not need to add other plugins and software to achieve my goals. It even has an inbuilt meta refresh page that is illustrated in the above diagram as ‘Confirm & Redirect’. This page is also integral to the conversion tracking system.
Now that I have the sales funnel plan and the software to implement the plan, product offers now need to be added, the pages created and then traffic applied to the front of the funnel to test conversions and ROI.
‘Squeeze page 1’ will have an offer that covers a basic plan for how to make money online whilst ‘Squeeze page 2’ will probably cover how to generate traffic which is a major problem to internet marketers. After that, visitors will be sent to my e-book offer wall that is already on my blog – http://mark-salmon.com/offerwall/ebooks/ .
I then need to write the email follow-up sequence which is the semi-automated part of the system.
This means that when my list building system is set-up anyone coming to my site at http://mark-salmon.com they will visit my primary squeeze page and either optin or try to leave which will trigger a second squeeze page where they will either optin or try to leave which will trigger a redirect to my ebook offer wall http://mark-salmon.com/offerwall/ebooks/ .
If anyone who has already opted in comes back to http://mark-salmon.com then they will be redirected to my blog at http://mark-salmon.com/news .
When on my blog or if someone comes into my site via a post then there is a pop-over offer to join The Sky Inside (my product) for free and there are other offers bothin the sidebar and on posts and pages throughout my website.
All this is in a effort to maximise the my traffic to my blog by ensuring that visitors have multiple opportunities to join my list which is my primary goal.
Once on my list, my prospect will be redirected to an initial paid offer and will also receive 7 days of follow-up emails with further information and offers. Thereafter, they will join my master list and will receive broadcast emails.
Purchasing Optin Hurricane will make your task of building a relatively sophisticated list building sales funnel relatively easy and I therefore recommend it.
Warrior Special Offers are a great method for lead generation. You pay $20 for a WSO sales thread and you can put your special offer in front of the traffic on the Forum.
I have noticed that a number of Warriors create free WSO’s – these convert at around 50% or better. If you were then to add a low-priced upsell after the free offer, it would not take much to recoup the expense of your thread and you would have a list of prospects and buyers to market to.
The only problem with these leads is that these prospects would be comparatively low value because it is likely that they are being bombarded by offer after offer and some of them will be freebie seekers. Also, most people do not value that which they get for free so they may not even consume your product!
I was doing some research in Warrior Plus and I noticed that some marketers are using this method frequently and here are their results:
As you can see from these stats, some of these WSO’s are getting a 1,000 plus leads.
I notice that Barb Ling tends to create products around breaking news whilst Reed Floren is attracting newbies with products that cover the basics of internet marketing. Both these experienced marketers will be montetising these leads on the back-end like crazy.
It may be worth moving the squeeze page offer on your blog onto the Warrior Forum to get the benefit of the Forum traffic – it’s just an idea!
You can keep bumping the thread as long as you keep getting some good leads and can monitor your return from the leads that you generate.
Perhaps this research will give you the motivation to use Warrior Special Offers for lead generation purposes – if so, join my list if you want to keep informed about more strategies for making money online or indeed for list building.
