I’ve found a good print on demand site at Redbubble.com and I am selling my graphics through this site.
Below are a sample of a few of my products:
Although I tried to set up a print-on-demand shop through Photobox I did not like their solution. They then decided to outsource their solution to a third-party provider who wanted to charge a monthly fee.
With Redbubble their is no charge to start selling your graphics and you can decide the profit margin over their manufacturing cost.
There are two other print on demand sites like Redbubble that I currently know about:
Design By Humans
Society 6
I am sure that there are plenty of other sites.
Whilst these sites provide a solution for selling your graphical skills they do not provide much in the way of traffic – that is your responsibility.
Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest are ideal free traffic vehicles for what is a very visual medium. Also, doing short YouTube videos showing before and after demonstrations on how the graphics were created would work.
I chose print on demand with Redbubble.com because I like how they have set their site and service up and it is very simple and easy to use.
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:
In this post I want to cover how to do market research using Facebook.
Facebook currently has 1.6 billion monthly active users worldwide and they are busy gathering data on all their users. You can access some of the data through Facebook Audience Insights.
Go to your Facebook account and search for ‘Audience Insights’.
Simply input the country or countries you are targeting and then input some primary keywords relating to your niche in the ‘Interests’ box – you can put more than one keyword in to gather data on related keywords. For my niche I input ‘make money online’, ‘digital marketing’ and ‘internet marketing’. (I discovered that a lot more people refer to themselves as interested in ‘digital marketing’ than ‘internet marketing’ – this is useful to know when creating my content.)
The data is gathered under tabs at the top of the page including the most important being ‘Demographics’, ‘Household’ and ‘Purchase’. I am copying and pasting the information from these 3 tabs below:
This information tells me the following about the internet marketing / digital marketing niche:
there are 3 to 3.5 million active people on Facebook interested in this niche in both the US and the UK.
65% are women and 35% are men.
35 to 37% are in the 25 to 34 age group, 23/24% are in the 35 to 44 age group, and 13/14% are in the 45 to 54 age group
Under ‘Relationship Status’ (which is cut off in this screenshot), 34% are single and 66% are either married, engaged or in a relationship.
Under ‘Education Level’ (which is also cut off by the screen shot) 82% are university educated which indicates that the vast majority of my audience is highly educated. This fits with the fact that that internet marketing can be technically challenging.
Under ‘Job Titles’ on the Demographics tab (also cut-off) the main job titles are Management, Sales and Admin.
If I then jump to the ‘Household’ tab, I find that the average income of 76% of my audience is said to be $50,000 or above, indicating that they are comparatively wealthy compared to other niches, and have the capacity to buy products and services.
Under ‘Household Size’, 49% of my niche have no children in the household
Under ‘Home Ownership’, 67% own their own home
Under ‘Home Market Value’, 73% of homes are in the $100-500k price bracket.
Under the ‘Purchases’ tab, 63% of my audience uses ‘Subscription Services’ which indicates that they may be willing to subscribe to something like a membership or newsletter. Interestingly, only 5% say they make ‘business purchases’. This suggests that whilst 100% of the audience are interested in internet and digital marketing, only 5% actually run an online business so there seems to be plenty of potential to convert some of this audience to online business entrepreneurs.
In order to sell products and services into a niche market, it is important to understand who your are in order to communicate effectively with them. This includes understanding what they want and what challenges they face in getting what they want. I will address this in another post.
Suffice it to say, this market research using Facebook gives us a pretty accurate idea of the profile of the audience in the digital marketing / internet marketing niche or any other niche we choose to research.
In this article I want to discuss the internet marketing lifestyle and specifically what it means to me and how anyone can achieve it.
There is a lot of hype about making vast sums of money from internet marketing – some do but many don’t. In fact the failure rate in internet marketing is high at around 95% and it may be that many aspiring internet marketers simply set their sights too high initially and get demoralised.
The first goal should be to cover one of your bills – if you can make say £100 a month to cover, say, your gas bill you can start to scale things up from there.
The first dollar or pound is always the hardest to make but when you can get something working, even if only in a small way, you can begin to build from there.
I was reminded of this last year when I was visiting some allotments and I came a cross an old lady working on a sizeable plot of land which was immaculately neat. She had meticulously dug over the whole plot and planted out all her vegetables in neat rows.
Given her age – she said she was 74 – I asked her how she had created such a beautiful plot because I knew that digging such a large plot alone would be a considerable physical effort, even for someone many years younger and physically stronger.
She said ‘I just do a little bit at a time every day.’
I took that advice to heart with my own vegetable plot. Previous to talking to her, I would always blitz my vegetable plot and inevitably half kill myself in the process which made me more reluctant to return for another session. This year I have dug over my plot – which is quite large – in 5 easy one hour sessions. The whole process is so much more enjoyable.
A simple change in working habits is all it takes! If you don’t kill yourself in the process, it so much easier to get started on the next working session.
So it is with internet marketing. Even though there is a lot to learn, if you take the approach of ‘little and often’ you can soon pick up the necessary skills and enjoy the process at the same time.
Also, by lowering your initial goals, you will be motivated to return because they will be more easily achievable.
Once you have achieved that initial goal of covering one of your bills, you can set your goals a little higher – replacing your current salary. Don’t make the mistake of aiming too high.
What Would It Take To Ditch Your Job?
Calculate what you would need to hand in your notice to your employer. In my own case £1,500 per month is quite sufficient because I have no mortgage.
Can I live like a lord on £1,500 per month? – the answer is no. But I CAN live a life of freedom.
I don’t use an alarm clock any longer to wake me up – I wake up when I am fully rested, usually at around 6.30 a.m. but it varies with the light – later in winter and earlier in summer.
When I am walking down my road with our dog in the morning it gives me great pleasure to walk past all the cars stuck in a queue trying to cross the bridge into town in the morning rush hour.
I often wonder what the occupants of those cars are thinking when the see me breezing past them with not a care in the world every morning – I can’t tell you how good it feels not having to conform to someone else’s timetable.
I walk around the River Avon drinking in the silence and watching the simple rhythms of nature – money cannot buy the profound sense of bliss this gives me. When I had a job, I simply couldn’t slow down enough to truly enjoy my life.
Generally, I return home to start work by around 8.30 a.m. and finish at around 12.30 a.m. for lunch. I return to work at 2 p.m. or, alternatively, I often go off and do some DIY or gardening before walking my dog again at around 4.30 p.m. before returning for supper.
One of the surprising discoveries I made about leaving a proper job is that it costs a lot of money to go to work.
If you add up the cost of commuting in both time and money, the cost of lunches and work wear etc (not to mention work social events – which I never really enjoyed-) you will be surprised how much you can trim off your monthly costs by working from home and also how much time you can save for more enjoyable activities.
The Internet Marketing Lifestyle = Stress-less Living
The other thing I want to mention is stress… or the lack of it, since I left a job. I found it stressful to conform to other peoples timetables, deadlines, goals and expectations.
One thing I have learnt is that physical manifestations of success like fancy cars and houses come with a large price tag in terms of the impact on your life i.e. doing things you don’t enjoy, stress and a terrible impact on your peace of mind.
Both my dog and I are totally chilled – in fact my dog is currently lying on my office sofa with her legs on the air dozing in complete luxury. I think we can learn from this attitude to life.
I used to worry about many things, including lack of money. Now I don’t because I have learnt that in the present moment, for 99.9% of the time, I have enough to live a good life and for the unexpected 0.1% something always turns up to fill the gap.
Live In The Moment
Living in the moment is the real key to living a good life and Eckhart Tolle is an excellent teacher of this art – I recommend that you find him on YouTube. It really is the key to living a good life with total peace of mind.
Slow down enough to really savour life and you will never return to your former work life no matter how short of money you are. Physical possessions and money are not the goal – living a good life can be easily achieved without them.
In one of my lean months, I remember my brother-in-law saying that he could get me a consulting job with a local car manufacturer paying £6,000 per month.
I think he was surprised by my reply when I told him that I would rather live in a box than to take a job like that and I really meant it.
It perhaps surprised me too that I was so passionate with my reply because I well remember how frightened I was by the prospect of leaving my well paid corporate job in 2001. I suffered headaches with the stress of it prior to leaving and my wife suffered too because she was so tense that she had a frozen shoulder.
It is amazing how the fantasy horrors that your mind dreams up seem so real and yet they are all an illusion. These fantasies are what keep most people rooted to a job they really hate.
I recently visited my former employer and was surprised to meet two girls who were there when I left. They were totally demoralised and just going through the motions of their job waiting for the day when they could get a voluntary redundancy package. What a sad waste of life.
Don’t let that be you.
If it is, I recommend that you take some time out to design the ideal life for YOU and then work on ‘a little bit at a time every day‘ to achieve your ideal lifestyle. Set low and achievable goals to start with and once you get something working, scale up from there.
There is no need to leave the comfort and safety of your job until you get something working to replace it.
Work out what you need to replace your job and go for it and you too can achieve the internet marketing lifestyle, if you desire it! Take it from me (and the little old lady), a little and often is the key to achieving this without undue stress or worry. Please opt in to my list if you enjoyed this article so I can help you make the transition to a life of freedom and peace of mind.
I started internet marketing full-time in April 2009 but it has always been difficult to explain to others what internet marketing really is. I’ve struggled to come up with a simple explanation but I recently had a moment of epiphany.
I was watching the introduction to one of Eban Pagan’s courses and he suddenly asked the audience if they new what internet marketing was? He answered his own question… internet marketing is online advertising.
This blog post for example is advertising – it has been written to attract eyeballs and to persuade you to take action i.e. sign up to my list, buy a product or simply keep in touch until one of these events happens. This is advertising.
Creating videos and audios, or indeed any content, is advertising. That means that if you are doing any sort of internet marketing it means that you are in the advertising game and you need to study the rules of advertising.
This means crafting headlines that attract attention, structuring your content to lead to a desired outcome and asking for ‘the click’ within your content. It means that gathering data such as # of views, # of clicks, heat maps, conversion rates and so on is vital to success.
It means that understanding sales psychology – things like scarcity tactics, trust builders such as social proof, authority building, reciprocation etc – is important to include in your content and sales letters.
Sometimes, when we are creating content, we can lose sight of the ultimate purpose of creating the content in the first place. If you can remember that you are in the game of advertising it will help you to create content that converts.
It will also help you to choose which skills you need to improve in order to get better at internet marketing i.e. advertising skills.
Advertising – this is what internet marketing really is.
‘Playing the ball where it lies’ is a golfing term and the story told in this video extract struck a chord with me, particularly as I used to play golf.
Listen in for 4 minutes to the video below because I think that resistance to ‘playing the ball where it lies’ both in business and our personal lives is the cause of a lot of stress…
The lesson here is that, whilst we can control SOME things in our lives, there are plenty of things that we cannot control and we can easily stray away from what was planned due to factors that are simply beyond our control.
How we respond to this is critical. Most of us will ‘resist’ the situation in our minds and this is the cause of much of our stress.
So its not what happens that is necessarily important, because things will happen that we cannot control, but how we respond to the situation that is important i.e. our willingness to accept the situation and to play the ball from where it lies.
The rest of this video is worth listening to. She goes on to quote Victor Frankel who survived the Nazi death camps in World War 2. He said:
[boxibt style=”gray”]’Between the stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is your power and your freedom.'[/boxibt]
If you are suffering stress in your business or your personal life, you may need the help of a spiritual teacher to help you to cope with the situation. The best person in my opinion is Eckhart Tolle – look him up on YouTube or buy his book ‘The Power of Now’.
It is possible to end stress, and the mental pain associated with it, by ‘playing the ball where it lies’ and thereby accepting the situation ‘as it is’ rather than resisting what we cannot control!
‘Internet Marketing Explained’ is my attempt to explain internet marketing as simply and with as much clarity as I can from the perspective of over 6 years of internet marketing experience.
It is easy to lose sight of the simplicity of the internet marketing model because there are so many distractions and offers that confuse the issue.
In simple terms, you need to send targeted visitors (traffic) to a relevant offer or offers, follow-up and track the conversion rates and profits/losses in order to improve your results.
So lets start with traffic.
Traffic
For a long time I was beguiled by SEO and the idea of free traffic. The problem is that free traffic is often highly competitive and subject to changes in algorithm that are outside your direct control.
It can also take time to get rankings and traffic via SEO.
The best way to get free traffic is to operate in a highly focused niche and carry out keyword research to understand both the potential and competition for the keywords you are trying to rank for.
I have observed that most gurus pursue paid traffic strategies because they are easier to switch on and off, faster to implement and easier to scale.
Paid traffic requires that you monitor your numbers closely to understand you click through rate, cost per click and earnings per click – if you fail to do this then you can quickly run into trouble.
So paid traffic demands that you have a marketing budget, that you know your numbers and holds you to a higher standard which is why most new marketers try to go the ‘free’ traffic route.
But ‘free’ traffic is not ‘free’ – it requires input of time and skill (which requires training). There is also no guarantee of results, so most experienced marketers simply buy clicks and monitor their returns on their paid traffic. Any free traffic is simply regarded as bonus traffic.
The exception to this is affiliate traffic but with affiliate traffic, the cost is that you pay a commission to the affiliate and you know that that customer will continue to be marketed to by the affiliate and any other product owners who that affiliate promotes.
Many paid traffic sources can now be highly targeted to your ideal prospect and paid traffic sources are plentiful so I recommend that you learn how to monitor and track your clicks from source to product delivery as quickly as possible.
Getting the click from your targeted prospect is as simple as using ‘copy’ to make the prospect curious enough to click your link to find out more.
With paid traffic, it is best to start with a low budget and then scale up gradually when you can see a return on your investment.
The Offers
Many marketers direct traffic first to a free offer, usually on a squeeze page or optin form on the page.
The reason they do this is to maximise conversions i.e. they get the contact details of the prospect so they can market to them in future.
Often, after they have the prospects contact details, they will make an immediate low-cost offer and then subsequent upsells and downsells in a sales funnel to maximise sales and conversions.
There are strategies for picking up visitors that try to escape the sales funnel – things like exit pops or down-sells to keep the prospect on your site and reading alternative offers.
Email Marketing
I include email marketing as part of the sales funnel process i.e. you keep sending your prospect back to the offer or to new offers.
To maximise your return from email marketing you also need to build a relationship by offering a combination of free value and paid offers that help them.
Email marketing is a learned skill in and of itself but this is where the majority of money is made if you do this properly.
It requires that you learn to write copy that invokes curiosity to click the link in your email to find out more. You also need to segment your lists so you can send relevant offers to the people on your list which will increase your conversions.
Product Creation or Affiliate Products
One of the skills you need to learn is how to create products that appeal to your market.
Whilst it is possible to earn good money by promoting other peoples products, you first need to get them on your list by offering them one of your own products either at the front-end of the sales funnel or as a bonus for buying using your affiliate link.
Digital products can be delivered via email, a download page or via a secure membership site.
Tracking Conversions
You need tools to track the conversions through your sales funnel from traffic source to product delivery and also to track your email open rates and clicks. This enables you to test strategies for improving conversions – for example, split-testing landing pages or alternative ad copy.
Knowing your numbers and generating more revenue than you spend on traffic is the name of the game. You build your business by creating a list of responsive prospects and customers.
Tracking tools include Google Analytics, proprietary link trackers, ad platform information, affiliate platform statistics etc.
Each promotion need s to be created as a marketing campaign and closely monitored for results.
Niche Selection
You need to operate in a focused sub-niche where there is already traffic and buyers of products. So researching your niche is a pre-requisite to internet marketing.
Once you have chosen your niche, you then need to immerse yourself in it to discover the problems and solutions that you can market to those targeted buyers.
Internet marketing starts with niche selection (and niche selection is another skill in and of itself) but rather than put this as the first item in this article, I thought that I would put it at the end just to be different!
Conclusion
That is the internet marketing business model in a nutshell.
How well you do in internet marketing is a product of taking action and your skill in the execution of the component parts of the model.
For example, being able to write compelling copy is a highly prized skill because you can dramatically increase sales conversions with this skill alone.
I hope ‘Internet Marketing Explained’ has been helpful to your understanding of the internet marketing business model – whilst there a whole host of nuances to this model, this is the essence of internet marketing.
I have set out some website planning questions on a mind map. These are questions that I need to cover to scope a website design project before quoting a price.
I thought that I would add this to my blog because I am certain that I will think of additional things to add to this mind map over time:
This article has 6 very incisive questions to ask the client before you undertake any project:
Today I want to make the case for de-cluttering and simplifying your business and your life.
Clutter, complexity and material possessions can become a huge burden in our lives.
When we moved house 5 years ago, the size of house we needed was largely dictated by the amount of possessions we had. We literally needed a storage facility that was big enough to house all our possessions.
Not long before moving house, my parents in law had passed on so we we added a lot of their possessions to our collection! This was stuff that was too good to throw away or had sentimental value.
Prior to that, I had some of my fathers tools and possessions when he passed away.
As a result of all this, my wife and I live in a 4-bedroomed house with two garages stacked high with boxes storing possessions that we cannot fit into our house. I also have a shed and greenhouse with yet more stuff in them.
We have talked frequently about selling stuff on Ebay or going to car-boot sales. But the whole prospect of listing stuff, dealing with buyers and hanging around at car boot sales is not appealing to me. Frankly, I would rather be doing other things.
The same kind of scenario has taken place on my computer. 80% of the software installed on my computer is never used and probably 95% of the content will never be accessed again.
I collect these items on the basis that I might need them at some unspecified time in the future or it is just too much hassle and effort to get rid of them and just dumping them would be wasteful.
An example of this is that, early on in my business life, I bought a lot of stationary and two stationary cupboards and two filing units.
Nowadays, I hardly ever use any stationary and my cupboards are hardly ever used other than for storing stuff I don’t use.
The stupid thing is, whether these possessions are physical or digital, I have to pay for storage, insurance and also the time taken to file or move stuff around.
In short, most of my possessions are a costly burden and I am determined to ‘minimalise’ them because it would not be fair to burden anyone else in my family with them.
De-cluttering and simplifying my life will lift a large burden from my life so that I can continue my journey with a lighter load. The video below will perhaps cllarify my thoughts for you…
I today carried out a website review for Swan Architects of Stratford-upon-Avon.
I met the owner of the business whilst I was out walking our dog yesterday (both of our dogs are called ‘Poppy’.) We often see each other but I have never stopped to chat with him before.
I asked him what he did for a living and he told me that he was an architect. I then told him what I did and he immediately said that he needed to sort out his website. His current website was created by him from a site-builder system.
Many businesses do this to save money but it is a false economy because it will directly impact sales revenue if you don’t get your online marketing right.
(I learnt this lesson in a previous business, when we hired a professional photographer for a few hundred pounds to take pictures of our product, and subsequently sold over £1m of product from a brochure with those pictures in it. I know how difficult it is to risk money upfront on marketing with no guarantee of a return!)
I volunteered to carry out a free review and here is the result below – sit back and enjoy the insights.
I am posting this because I think many other small businesses are making similar mistakes with their online marketing and it should be instructional for those businesses too.
Here is a summary of the points covered in video:
– Font size
– Lack of text
– No headlines
– No calls to action
– Lack of branding
– No explanation of who you are or what you do
– Who is your target market and where are they located?
– What is the step-by-step process to take a project from start to finish?
– What is your involvement in that process?
– Where is the proof that you can do it?
– Why should I choose you rather than a competitor?
– Your projects page does not give enough explanation of what you did and what we are looking at.
– No links to Social Media sites
– No site map
– The site is not mobile friendly – you will be penalised for this by Google (- the good thing is that most of your competitors have got this wrong too!)
– There are non-working areas of the site and some technical issues
– You are not getting traffic from the search engines
– Your content is not targeting keywords that people will use in the search engine to find your service
– Your business is not registered with Google Plus
– The professionalism and design of your website will subliminally reflect on the perceived quality of your work
If you would like me to carry out a free website review for your business, then please feel free to contact me.
In one of the sections of his book entitled ‘The Brutal Truth’, John Reese has a sub-heading or chapter with the headline:
Mediocre Graphics No Longer Cut It, You Must Use Beautiful Top-Notch Design (No Exceptions).
When John Reese says something like this about website design, I listen.
Here is a brief description of his career so far:
[boxibt style=”gray”]In 2004, Reese astonished the online marketing world by selling $1,080,496 worth of his “Traffic Secrets” product over the course of eighteen hours. He launched a new product and made over a million dollars in less than a day without spending a single cent on advertising.
Reese realized early in his career that the best way to make money is to learn from others. The successes and failures of other experts in the online marketing field helped him learn to avoid gambling on new strategies with his hard-earned money.
For instance, Reese once sold a domain name for 900 dollars, and the buyer turned around and resold the same domain name for one million dollars in cash. Talk about a hard lesson learned!
In 1994, Reese created one of the first auto-responder services on the world wide web.
Since then, he has developed and launched over 100 projects on the Internet, including a free photography site for eBay users, which launched in 1998. Within the first 10 months after going live with his eBay photo hosting site, it was already ranked among the top 500 websites in the world for web traffic.
What did that mean as far as Reese’s bottom line was concerned?
He was making over 100 thousand dollars a month for a website that cost under 500 dollars to create and develop.
Reese is an eBay pro. He’s even made over 38 thousand dollars on a single eBay auction.
Reese has been sharing his expertise with other Internet marketers since 2004.
He is a pro when it comes to research and development, testing projects, tracking results, generating online traffic and conversion. http://john-reese.net[/boxibt]
So when John says, “The days of ‘ugly websites’ that make a lot of money are over.” I listen to him.
He goes on to say:
[boxibt style=”gray”]Oh, I know, I know, but but but… you read about some split-tests where the ‘ugly’ design or ad converted higher than the ‘pretty’ version!
There will always be a place for simple, compelling copy-driven direct response mechanisms (i.e. ads, landing pages etc) in digital marketing. It’s the copy that sells people and always has.
But there’s a ‘bigger picture’ happening. And ‘YES, there may still be a few ugly sites online that are having success today, and some may even be making a fortune right now, but
A) those are the rare exception and
B) I believe their conversions will only continue to get worse.
It’s only a matter of time, because a major shift is occurring and I’ve seen it as clear as day in DATA THAT DOESN’T LIE.
With the worldwide increase in device usage (smartphones to tablets) we find ourselves using these screens more and more. Because of this behavioural shift it created an important focus on UI (user interface) design and user experiences.
If you haven’t noticed, graphical interfaces got cleaner. And easier to use.
There’s an entire design ‘evolution’ occurring across the Web, mobile devices and more. And it’s all about CONVERSION. More professional, easier-to-navigate design makes more money.
Design now matters. A lot.
As competition grew, companies competed by having better design and better user experiences. ‘Design’ is what people see and experience in the digital world. It’s now incredibly important.
If your business doesn’t have awesome design you’re at a huge disadvantage. PERIOD.
TRUST is a major factor with online conversions. Great design is one element of establishing ‘instant credibility’ with prospects that don’t know of you and your business. If you take two competitors with everything else the same, but one has better design than the other, the one with the better design wins – better logos, product packaging, use interface and more.
This wasn’t always the case online as just a few short years ago ugly marketing converted quite well (even for sales) and in some markets it still does. But things are changing fast. It’s still a ‘balancing act’ that the copy has to do its job, but more and more people feel better about doing business with a company that has more professional design and a better user experience.[/boxibt]
It was reading ‘The Brutal Truth’ by John Reese that made me continue down the track of developing my Photoshop skills.
Joh Reese and ‘The Brutal Truth’ have eventually led to the creation of my product ‘Easy Actions‘ (launching 3rd July 2015) which is an easy way in for anyone to start creating beautiful graphics for their website, product packaging and much more
Thought control is at the heart of every business and every public institution. It’s a also a major constituent of marketing – understanding the psychology of marketing and selling is critical to power and success.
Thought control is central to the following institutions:
politics and government
religion
education
our legal system
the media
business
family life – the parent/child relationship
The majority of people are happy to be led by the nose because they are usually lazy in thought and deed.
Everyone has an opinion but most opinion is not based on fact-based research or careful investigation. It is based on prejudice and the daily dose of mis-information and marketing that they are fed by the various institutions that touch their life with their controlling messages.
In King Henry VIII’s time the clergy had a strangle-hold on the interpretation of the Bible which was always written in Latin.
When Latimer translated the Bible into English he was forced to emigrate to Europe as a heretic because the clergy were determined to retain their stranglehold on the thoughts and aspirations of their flock through their monopoly of the Bible and it’s translation, which promised it’s followers access to heaven (or hell for disbelievers and heretics) based on a set of values which included giving money and land to the church to buy your way to a better after-life!
The same level of thought control is in operation today if you care to look for it.
This is particularly the case in marketing.
The internet both facilitates and disarms thought control.
It facilitates thought control by making it possible to share your message – the ISIS rebels in Syria and Iraq are using social media very effectively to recruit support for their dream of an Islamic state.
The internet also disarms thought control because it gives you the capacity to research what is actually happening in more depth and to listen to other peoples opinion.
In the case of ISIS, we can also hear about what an Islamic state means in practice – repression, barbarity and regression to a medieval set of values loosely based on religious fanaticism.
In China, the internet is policed by the state – a form of thought control.
This is why it pays to understand marketing practices and the psychology of marketing – to know when someone is deploying a marketing strategy such as scarcity or risk-reversal – gives you the ability to stand back from the situation and make a more careful assessment of the facts.
Understanding that thought control is at the heart of every public and private institution gives you the ability to start thinking more critically – to unbundle the controlling elite.
To me, religion is all about thought control – it has resulted in the accumulation of enormous power and wealth for the religious institutions and their clergy.
But very few people think like this – they are content to concede personal freedom and power to the clergy.
It’s the same with marketing – businesses can accumulate enormous power and wealth through marketing.
The power of thought control through clever marketing is at the heart of every good business – persuading you to pay more for perceived benefits is what marketing is all about.
Whilst Apple have good products, they are only able to charge more for their products because of smart marketing – a form of thought control. Their equipment is essentially a fashion statement that panders to the ego of the owner who justifies the enormous price he pays by recalling the marketing messages that led to the sale.
Whilst on occasions a mobile phone can be useful, I used to manage very well without one and still do! I don’t have a mobile phone at the moment and I don’t feel the need for one.
Recently my car broke down and I didn’t have access to a mobile phone to call the garage.
What did I do?
I borrowed one from a passer by and offered to pay them for the call. They refused payment because they were happy to help me.
It’s easy to justify your phone purchase as insurance for emergencies but for 99.999% of the time it just doesn’t hold water.
Others will say that they need their phone to access their email (another form of thought control!) or bank account – both of these reasons just aren’t true – I control both without a mobile phone just by organising my time effectively and limiting my access to both services to certain times of the day.
In any event you can get a perfectly serviceable mobile phone for about £5 if you really think you can’t live without one. But people are still paying hundreds of pounds for mobile phones – why?
Thought control achieved through marketing and peer pressure.
In fact, this very blog post is a form of thought control.
In business the real power lies in thought control i.e. marketing – get good at this and you can accumulate power and wealth just like all the other institutions listed above. Understanding this transfers personal power and freedom to you and away from these institutions because you now understand the game that they are playing.
This is how I feel when it comes to writing sales copy!
In this article I want to briefly cover the chunk copy copywriting strategy – a strategy that I learned by listening to ‘The Kaizen Copywriting System’ videos.
This is a summary of the notes that I made.
This system appeals to me for the following reasons – it relies on a policy of:
no hype
no long-form copy
no testimonials
The system advocates ‘chunk’ copy – in other words ‘pithify’ your offer into the most essential elements.
You need to ask yourself ‘how can I explain this in as few words as possible and still convey the benefits?’ i.e. what’s in it for my customer.
Never assume that either you are known to your customer or that they ‘get’ your product or service – think in terms of explaining it to a beginner.
Your business is to solve someone’s problem. Never forget that.
This means that you employ an ‘issue & tissue’ strategy where you introduce a problem (issue) and then offer a solution (tissue). You need to explain the problem better than they could and then offer lots of ’tissues’.
In your sales copy, you need to hit them with your best stuff ‘above the fold’ of the page i.e. in the top 600 pixels of the page because you lose 50% of your visitors when they have to go below the fold.
After you have written out your copy, you need to read it out aloud to make sure that it flows easily. Copywriting is about editing – print it off, read it out loud, mark your edits and repeat this process until you are satisfied. If you get stuck, take a break and come back to it.
Writing Sales Copy
When writing your sales copy, write down a list of 15 things that your product or service does and then write a few sentences about ‘what’s in it for me’…
This is what it does. For you that means…
This is what it does. You don’t need to…
This is what it does. Imagine…
This is what it does. Because of that…
Arrange your 15 items in a logical sequence and then format your sales letter in one of two ways:
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Sales Letter Format #1:
Headline
Video
Subheading
Copy (& Image)
Subheading
(Image &) Copy
Subheading
Copy (& Image)
…and so on down the page
Offer Summary
Copy
Order Button (Click Here To Place Your Order)
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Sales Letter Format #2:
Headline
Video
Subheading
Copy Box Copy Box Copy Box
Subheading
Copy Box Copy Box Copy Box
Subheading
Copy Box Copy Box Copy Box
…and so on down the page
Offer Summary
Copy
Order Button (Click Here To Place Your Order)
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Writing Video Copy
Always write a script for your video first. 160 words = one minute of video.
Videos are great for demonstrating ‘before and after’ scenarios and for demonstrations of your product.
Here are 4 potential video script formats:
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Video Script Format #1:
Just the facts
i.e. to the point – what it does with no hype or sales pitch – the text underthe video explains ‘what’s in it for me’
This is the fastest script to create and deliver.
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Video Script #2:
The Classic Video
State a problem (better than they can themselves)
Introduce the promise of a solution.
Introduce your ‘chunks’ of copy that say what it does and what this does for me.
Call to action at end telling them what to do next. (To find out how, see below this video.)
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Video Script #3
What about Bob?
If you cannot come up with a compelling script, introduce a fictional character showing his life before and after using your product or service.
Introduce the character.
Show problems that cause suffering in his life.
How the solution (your product) has made him happy and successful
Call to Action.
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Video Script #4
The Curiosity Script
Use a Powerpoint presentation to create curiosity to cause people to take action to learn more.
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Writing Email Copy
Use plain text emails.
Never sell blatantly in your emails.
The only purpose of your email is to get your reader from Point A to Point B i.e. to click on the link in your email to find out more.
So don’t give everything away – this is teaser copy that evokes curiosity.
Your subject line, to get them to open and read your email copy, is very important. Ask yourself whether you would open your email based on the subject line.
Example subject lines:
Horror story
How to…
A question – Are these bugs or fruit?
I don’t (blank) and why you shouldn’t either.
It all ends today…
You’re wearing invisible underwear.
I can’t believe they are doing this to you.
Here are four formats for your emails:
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Email copy type #1:
The Kaizen Classic
This is short copy that evokes curiosity, explains what’s in it for them and offers tissues for issues.
It is short and to the point.
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Email copy type #2:
Edumail
State a general problem that the market faces and it’s cause.
Educate on common solutions and their pro’s and cons.
At the end, offer an easier or better solution (- your product)
Call to Action
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Email copy type #3
The Acid Test
Pick a product that’s attracting attention in the market and subject it to an ‘acid test’.
Compare it to alternatives.
Subject line: ‘If you only knew the truth about this!’
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Email copy type #4:
The Story Email
Your whole life is a story – use it to create compelling story copy.
Most conversations are stories – use dialogue in these types of emails.
There’s what happened and your story of what happened.
Stories are powerful in your copy – use them.
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Conclusion
This is just an outline of what I learned in the Kaizen Copywriting System training. This training comes in the form of a lot of short (chunk!) videos that clearly sets out the system which makes it easy to understand and consume.
This copywriting strategy of chunking your copy to fit with readers attention span on the internet makes a lot of sense to me unless you are a top copywriter.
As most of us do not fall into the category of ‘expert copy-writer’, use this ‘chunk copy strategy outlined by this system to at least get your offer across quickly and succinctly rather than boring the pants off your readers with a long-form sales letter that is full of hype.
I recently came across this easy bonus page strategy for affiliate marketing.
You may be wondering how some affiliates crush product launch promotions and this strategy is one of the reasons why they earn big commissions from affiliate marketing.
This strategy is very simple and has the following 3 steps:
Step #1 – Find a good product launch
This can easily be accomplished by heading over to sites like Muncheye or JV Notify Pro. These sites list all of the upcoming product launches.
Step #2 – Create your bonus page
Create a a bonus page with bonuses that complement the product launch offer. These bonuses are available to people that click on your affiliate link and buy the product. Be sure to place a value on your bonuses and also to include a countdown timer to add urgency to your offer.
You can either offer your own products as bonuses or purchase PLR and resell-rights products to create an enticing bonus page offer. If you can find a gap in the product your are promoting, you can seek to fill that gap with your bonus.
Of course, anyone who claims your bonus will be added to your list and you will have them on your custom audience (- see below -) so you can market to them again.
Step #3 – Drive traffic to your bonus page
This is accomplished in two ways:
– using targeted FB ads – these ads are targeted towards people who like gurus like Frank Kern, Mike Filsaime, John Thornhill, Omar Martin, Ryan Deiss etc
– using Facebook re-targeting pixels to serve up ads to people who visit your bonus page but do not immediately buy the product – these ads drive them back to your bonus page. This is particularly useful for serving ads up that give notice of the product launch and your bonus offer ending to inject urgency.
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This bonus page strategy for affiliate marketing is extremely effective so do not be fooled by its simplicity – it works. Join my list in the sidebar if you wish to learn more strategies and please feel free to comment below.
‘Service to many leads to greatness’ is a phrase that I first heard on a Jim Rohn audio. This short phrase perhaps epitomises why I have pursued internet marketing as my full-time career for the last 6 years.
From 2001 to 2009 I ran a business consultancy for local businesses. This was reasonably successful based on the relationships that I had established with some local businesses whilst I was in corporate banking.
However, I always had the dream of impacting even more businesses. And, of course, generating more wealth for myself as a result.
The problem with my local consultancy was that it was very intensive of my time and I could only handle a relative handful of businesses.
I ran local events and even ran a business consulting group for a while. I do remember that getting a room for my local events was always more time and trouble than I wanted to expend and also expensive.
So I guess that I was looking for a way to reach more businesses with less hassle.
Which is why internet marketing attracted me.
Initially I got into internet marketing as a way to generate online leads but quickly saw the potential to take my whole business online with blogging and product creation etc
This started in April 2009, when I signed up to a membership training site run by Ann Sieg and Mike Klingler who specifically trained network marketers to generate leads.
Looking back, my biggest mistake was to try to tackle too big a niche – I was not focused enough on specifically what is was that I could do better than anyone else. I was trying to be ‘all things to all men’.
This is difficult to overcome because, when you start out, it is hard to identify what it is that you can do better and who would most benefit from what you have to offer! You need to be very clear about this.
If I had to start again, I would get very good at just one thing, by studying a focused problem or skill in depth, putting it into action and then teaching others how to do it. In other words, I would move more quickly from consuming information to then taking action on what I had learnt and creating training products to teach others what I had learnt.
That is easy to say now but creating products seemed difficult at the time and I lacked the confidence to get started, even though I had been doing it in the real world!
I think the technical part was intimidating to someone who had had difficulty setting up an email account in 2001 when I left banking and started my own consultancy business.
I really have come a long way since then. It’s easy to dismiss or forget just what I know.
My daughter has recently started her own business in the health and nutrition niche – she is an agent for Forever Living Products, whose UK headquarters is about 8 miles from where I live.
My daughter has started her own website – I set it up for her and I support her as she tries to get to grips with creating her own content. It has been an enormous help to her for me to put the right tools in place for her and to be a sounding board for her. It is easy to under-estimate how much time and cost I have cut from her learning experience.
I’m sure my daughter does not really know what I have saved her in terms of her learning curve.
Her biggest mistake at the moment is wanting to be independent and therefore not asking me enough questions.
I guess we are all guilty of that because my experience is that, IF you ask, most people are will to help.
It’s just finding someone that you can trust!
I do know that getting a good coach can be enormously helpful if you can find the right person – it can also be an enormous waste of money if you choose unwisely.
This is why I share so much information on my blog – to demonstrate the range and depth of my business knowledge.
In truth, when I started out, I could have created a business in the management information niche because several of my best consulting projects involved setting up complex management information systems using my accounting skills.
Nowadays, I don’t create content in this area at all although I do have a product called ‘Measure N Manage’ which covers management information in internet marketing.
What I do know is that service to many starts off with helping just one person and steadily growing the scope and reach of your business.
If you can just help one person to get a result, you have someone who can provide a testimonial or a case study to enable you to recruit more customers.
It’s also easier if initially you can narrow the scope of your business to offer one product or service that provides just one solution to one problem that the people in your niche are having.
Become great at this one product or service and expand from there. That’s my best advice.
If you think about it, specialists in any area of life earn more than general practitioners.
You’ll be surprised at how quickly your business will take off if you can discipline yourself to follow this advice.
Word will get around that you are the ‘go-to’ expert in your particular chosen area and people will seek you out.
Soon you will find that your ‘service to many will lead to greatness’ but ‘service to many’ all starts with serving that first customer and providing a solution to their one biggest problem.
I do have a coaching programme that you can join which can help you to identify your area of expertise – it may seem ‘expensive’ but in retrospect I know that in due course you will acknowledge that it saved you a lot of time and money – I can coach you either by email or via some focused coaching sessions. Alternatively, you can invest in my products if you want to know more.
Book, Blog, Podcast is a strategy for leveraging the power of Amazon, Google and iTunes and getting your message out into the mainstream.
Amazon, Google and iTunes are the traffic monsters that are always looking for high quality content.
If you are looking to get your message out into the world then you need to consider leveraging all three platforms in order to get maximum coverage.
(This is not unlike Christine Clayfield’s publishing strategy of publishing her books in every possible online book outlet in order to get an average income of $26k in sales per book across over 70 books.)
If you combine this strategy with good SEO execution then this can be a very powerful strategy. It’s a strategy that I picked up from a webinar held by Connie Raegan Green in the 6-in-6 Coaching Programme.
These are the notes that I made as I listened to the webinar – hopefully you can follow what was said in this abbreviated format.
Let’s take a look at each piece of this trifecta…
Your Book
Think about what can you expect if you write a book?
How can you expand on that?
What’s next after you’ve written the book?
There are many people who have created a career based on their book – Robert Kiyosaki, Tim Ferris, Eckhart Tolle, Tony Robbins, Susie Orman, to name but a few. These people had a game plan when writing their book.
What are you going to write about?
You can share your personal experiences. Why will people want to learn this from you? Is there something new to share?
What are the challenges and struggles of people in your market?
When you start writing your book, you need to organise your thoughts and prepare an outline so that you can approach the execution of your book one chapter at a time.
You will need to schedule a time to write. Schedule this time when you are sharpest and give it top priority. Say one or two hours a day.
Find out who has already written on your topic and who are the real movers and shakers in your niche. Who is in your niche? Read their books and content. On Amazon, you can take a look inside and view the table of contents to get ideas for your book.
Search for their websites, read their blogs and join their list to see want they are sending out to their list. Do they have anything for sale?
Consider teaching a course based on the content in your book, even before the book is written, and then mail a copy of your book to your course members.
Be willing to challenge the accepted philosophy in your niche. Your perspective is unique.
Your Blog
You want to use WordPress.org and have a self-hosted website with a hosting firm like Hostgator. Buy your domain name from Namecheap.
Build a list by giving something away for free. What do people in your niche optin for? Create your own version but make it simple and easy to consume.
Write your first 10 auto responder messages to send people as soon as they join your list – keep them short but valuable with something clickable in every message.
Always remember why someone joined your list in the first place and what action you ultimately want them to take with you. If you know that you can reverse engineer the process that you want them to follow to reach that ultimate destination.
Share your lifestyle on social media and have fun with it – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram – try to connect these together like a spiders web of content. Let people know who you are and what you stand for.
Get online publicity using Webwire for $30 per submission.
Also, consider getting coverage with local media.
Your Podcast
Base this on your book and blog content.
What is the format? Is it interviews, Q & A’s or ‘edutainment’?
I use a free tool called Audacity and also a premium tool called Audello to create a share my podcasts.
4 Questions To Give You Direction
Why is your topic important?
What is your topic by definition?
What if someone uses your strategies, what would their life be like?
How does your topic work in a step-by-step process.
Storytelling
Storytelling is critical to sharing your message and storytelling needs to be used in your book, blog and podcast in order to connect with other people. These are little stories about your life that enable you to really connect with your audience and illustrate the message that you are conveying.
Creating Your Outline
What is your big idea?
What is your working title?
Who should write your foreword for you?
What is your preface – your story from pain to pleasure.
Introduction – your thesis statement for your book.
Your sections based on the 4 questions above. Create the titles of your chapters and the premise or bog idea for each chapter.
The Order Of Things In Your Book
Dedication
Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapters
Conclusion
The most important people in the publishing process are the writer and reader – all others are superfluous in the publishing world. This is a complete change in 2015 and beyond. You can choose to use a publisher or not – Amazon has changed the game with CreateSpace.com – this is their Print-on-Demand publishing division. It’s free to use.
You will need to create a book cover or outsource this.
You will also want to use Kindle – kdp.amazon.com. This is free as well.
Create your own author page at authorcentral.amazon.com to get a link back to your blog.
The Order Of Priority
Your book is the first piece of your marketing platform.
The hosted WordPress site is next – post at least once a week on a topic that is relevant to your book.
Podcast on iTunes. Use the free Podpress plugin to add your audio to your blog – talk about your topic, your blog and your book.
Blogging Success Tips
Post consistently – 300 to 500 words.
Use your keywords in your Permalink.
Do original content, guest posts and curated content.
Promote every post on social media
Reply to all comments.
Podcast Success Tips
Podcast consistently.
Have a clear message.
Share valuable information
Turn every podcast into a blog post
Have something for sale
Other Platforms
YouTube.com
Facebook pages and groups
LinkedIn Groups
Twitter Lists
Instagram
How To Get This Done
Start from where you are right now.
You now have a blueprint.
Do this one step at a time, one day at a time.
The next step? Subscribe to my blog in the side-bar 🙂
The ‘Puppy Dog Close’ goes like this. The pet store lets you take home the cute puppy for a few days to see if you like it on the basis that, if you have any problems, they will give you a free refund.
The psychology behind this is to remove the risk of purchase i.e. that you’ve made a big mistake without recourse to a refund.
The pet-store owner is banking on the fact that you will grow attached to the puppy and will not be able to bring it back because you have formed an emotional bond with it.
The first time I heard about this close was in relation to a store that sold expensive televisions in a rural part of the country. They were a top seller of televisions by simply using the puppy dog close – they were banking on the fact that when the owner of the TV got it home and showed it off to his family, friends and neighbours, his ego would not allow him to return the television to the shop.
The reason I’ve written this post is that I was reminded of this close when I read this article which is a variation on the original Puppy Dog Close…
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The Great Puppy Dog Ambush and its Devious Lessons for your Web Conversions
It was an ambush.
There I was in Brisbane at a seminar and… it happened.
Like all good ambushes it was deviously planned, cunningly created and implemented with military-like precision.
The first inkling I got was when my iphone vibrated (naturally on silent because of the seminar!) indicating a text message.I looked at it under the table. The text contained 6 words which are enough to send a shiver down the spine of any man with a wife and children.
All it said was…“we r @ the pet store”.
OMG.
The training was really good, high quality but my day had taken a turn for the worst.
My response: “we’ll talk when i get home”.
It happened again. Text vibration went off.
This time a picture.Youngest child holding a cute little puppy.I ignored it.
2 minutes later another text. Second oldest child with same cute puppy. Not good.
All up I received 4 such pics… one for each kid holding this little white ball of fluff.
Ok Poindexter, I’ve heard enough about your family issues, tell me what’s in it for me.
Stick with me here… because the process used in this ambush could be worth a motza for you.
Back to the story…
We had no contact again until I arrived home at about 7 that night to be greeted at the door by a sea of excited expectant faces.You see they knew I didn’t want a puppy.
With a (by today’s standards) big family, last thing I wanted was another mouth to feed, medical bill to pay, “kid” to buy toys for.Luckily for me I arrived home prepared.
The hour drive had given me time to get my objections sorted in my mind and as I walked in the front door I was loading my “gun” with these well-thought out bullets.
Then THE question came…“Dad she’s so cute, can we PLEEEEEAAAASSSSE get her?”
No way. I was prepared. And quite happy to wear “the world’s biggest bastard” tag for a week or 2… they’d come round.
We’re not getting a dog.
“Why not?”Ok, time to click the safety switch off, work the bolt and get ready to fire…
Because when you have a dog you can’t go on holidays, you can’t get away even for a weekend.
No!“The shop where the puppy is has a puppy motel… only $95 a week and they feed it and love it and look after it very well!”Bugger.
Dogs are expensive. No!“Dad, it’s such a good deal. The dog comes wormed, vaccinated, vet checked. You get a free microchip, free puppy school AND… free doggy hydro bath for LIFE. You won’t even have to wash her!”Damn.
This pet store knows a thing or two about marketing. They’d taken my love-struck kids’ eyes off the price.
I wasn’t giving up without a fight…I’m not getting up in the middle of the night to a puppy. I’ve done that with you kids. Not doing it again. And I’m not picking up dog poo.
No!“It’s ok, you won’t have to we will do it all.”Yeah right. For the first week until the novelty wears off.Then second oldest daughter grabs me by the hand and takes me to the lounge. She points to a piece of paper blu-tacked to the wall under the light switch.A quick tour of the house revealed all bedrooms with this same darn piece of paper on the wall.They’d thought of EVERYTHING.
The paper was a roster. Day by day. Job by job. Each kid’s responsibilities for looking after it laid out for all to see.My name wasn’t there.“See dad, we’ve got it sorted, you won’t have to do a thing!”
This was not going well.I was in deep trouble.
Ok time to bring out the heavy artillery. You see I love my lawn. My neighbours are jealous. Passersby comment. It’s darn sexy.So I let them have it.What about my lawn! There’s no way any dog is going to dig it up.“
She won’t dad, she’s only little and she’s soooo cute!”
World’s biggest bastard was deeper in trouble.
Last chance…If we get a dog, you kids will just fight over who’s playing with it. Heck we won’t even get it home without an argument over whose lap it’s sitting on in the car!
Second eldest says nothing but disappears and returns with my old fishing hat. It contained 4 pieces of paper.“We’ve even thought of that. Our names are in here and whichever one gets chosen gets to nurse the dog on the way home. We all agree. There’ll be no fights.”Then she says…“And you even get to pick the name out of the hat!”Lucky me.
I was defeated.
Her name is Tilly and yes, she’s very cute.Ok, because you’ve read this far… here are the BIG marketing lessons…
Marketing lesson #1: What you offer visitors to your website IS vital. Seems like stating the obvious but you really need to put thought into it. It’s a concept I drum into the copywriters I coach… “GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT”.Just like the pet store does when it sells a dog.What do prospective dog owners want? Healthy puppy which is low maintenance… so that’s what they give you. Vet checked, vaccinated, micro-chipped, wormed, puppy school, free doggy wash for life… the offer covers ALL bases.So should your offers. There is massive perceived value built in here. Your mind is on all these “extras” and the cute ball of fluff. It makes it easy to buy and easy to ignore or justify in your mind the asking price.
Can you say the same about your offers? If you answer “NO”… maybe it’s time to give the market what they want with a “puppy dog” type offer.
Marketing Lesson #2: People buy on emotion and justify with logic. Does your copy make it easy for them to do this? That little “war” between me and my kids (me throwing up objections, the kids answering them) is the same “war” which goes on in everyone’s mind BEFORE they buy.
Your copy must point out the value and the result they will get so the “war” in their minds is easy for them to win. When there is emotional connection there… when they can logically justify why they should buy… then BINGO… you’ve made the sale.
Remember, think of all the reasons they won’t buy and then overcome them in your copy.
Just like my kids did to me.
OK, I’m off to play with little Tilly and take care of my sexy lawn…
In addition to the marketing lessons above, I also learnt:
Marketing Lesson #3: Deal with all objections, preferably in advance, as part of your sales letter. His kids had anticipated his objections and were ready with their solutions.
Marketing Lesson #4: Whilst the kids were not in a position to buy the puppy themselves, they heavily influenced the buying decision. This demonstrates that the person who is able to pay may not be the person you need to market your service too. Have you identified the real decision-makers in your marketing?
Marketing Lesson #5: The real profit in this transaction, probably was not the sale of the puppy. A puppy needs eating bowls, dog food, lead and or harness, grooming equipment, dog bed, dog toys, flea treatment and so on. The back-end profits from this transaction are far greater than the initial sale for the pet store – if the pet store is smart this would be part of their back-end marketing system to maximise the lifetime value of the customer.
This is the same in internet marketing – give away something valuable or offer it at a low price, to get a buyer on your list, and then make profits on the back-end with email marketing is the standard internet marketing model.
Another variation on this puppy dog strategy is to give a $1 trial for a few days, with the rest payable automatically unless cancelled – if you have a high quality product. then cancellations will be low and many people will forget to cancel anyway.
The Puppy Dog Close is a very effective strategy – is this something you could use in your marketing strategy?
Once your product is in the customers’ hands and the customer experiences the joy of ownership, the sale is all but certain, particularly when there is a strong emotional attachment to the purchase. Sit down and start thinking about how you could entice your prospects and customers with a puppy-dog close that will make your closing ratios higher than they’ve ever been before.
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I started internet marketing full-time in April 2009 but it has always been difficult to explain to others what internet marketing really is. I’ve struggled to come up with a simple explanation but I recently had a moment of epiphany.
