A Marketing Model That You Can Apply To Get Better Results From Any Internet Business Opportunity.
Sometimes we get led to believe that internet business is nothing like business in the real world. All the hype screams how easy it is to make money with little or no effort on your part.
How we don’t need a quality product , a quality service and how we don’t need to establish a relationship with our customer base.
How that can all be skipped because we have this magical medium called the internet that can make all those business basics obsolete.
I don’t think that’s the case , and I think that if you do believe that you are setting yourself up for a fall.
Below is a report that we generated for companies doing business online to show them how to make more money from their marketing efforts online.
You can apply it directly to your internet business opportunity and it will help you to develop a relationship with your prospective customers and ultimately have them buying much more of your stuff.
It’s called rather fancily ” 7 Secrets To Make More Money From Your Online Marketing.”
How To Make More Money From Your Online Marketing!
“ 7 Secrets Guaranteed to Boost Sales and Profits without Paying any More for your Advertising. ”
Copyright 2009 Wonderweb Media Ltd
Wonderweb Marketing is a trading name of Wonderweb Media LTD, Company Number: 6726777, VAT Registration Number: 941 0888 16
CONTENTS
1) IT’S A TWO-STEP
2) 7-9 TIMES A LADY
3) COMPEL ME
4) THE FORTUNE IS IN THE FOLLOW UP
5) A RELATIONSHIP IS FOR LIFE, NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS
6) THE RIGHT CROSS AND THE UPPER CUT
7) TRAFFIC, TRAFFIC, TRAFFIC
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Secret #1:
It’s a Two-Step
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The reason we see so many people that have had big budgets blown with the ad companies is because of this. The ad companies only do the one-step !
Your sales and marketing is a two-step process. Understand this and you can scale and grow your business to as big as you want to be. Fail to understand this and you may be on the road to ruin. Or at least blowing large chunks of unnecessary cash on your advertising.
Many people take their budgets to an ad company. They in turn will tell you all about how much traffic they can get for you ( although it may not be high quality, converting traffic ). You will pay so many thousands to get so many visitors or impressions, hoping and praying that those visitors or impressions will make enough sales to justify the spend. Then it’s cross your fingers time and hope for the best.
More often than not, you will find that your sales have not recouped your outlay. That’s if you even track your sales from your ad spend. You would be amazed at how few companies actually do.
But applying traffic is actually the second part of a two-step process and unless and until you have the first part right, you may as well not bother with advertising because it can blow a very big budget very quickly.
Before you even think about turning on the traffic ( targeted traffic by the way, I have seen very few ad companies that deliver targeted traffic ) you need to know your numbers.
I would highlight that and post it somewhere you can see it every day, because understanding this one point could literally change your business overnight.
KNOW YOUR NUMBERS !
Tracking and testing is absolutely the most critical thing you can do for your online business.
How many of your visitors convert into leads, sales? What is the average cost of a sale and average value of a visitor to your site ? What is the average cost to get a visitor to your site ?
If your average value of a visitor is above the average cost it takes to get him/her there you’re onto a winner and you’re making money.
If it is not then you need to improve the numbers. Break them down into pieces and raise those figures one at a time.
Actually even if the figures are good you can always optimize and improve. Small improvements make massive differences.
Lets say your website converts 1% of visitors into sales. If you can optimise it and raise that to 2% you have just doubled your sales.
If you were making a million a year, you are now making two million. With no more money spent on advertising to double your sales.
From exactly the same advertising and traffic to your website, you have just doubled your sales.
Your home page or landing is the place to start. What percentage of people go on to buy or make an enquiry or give you their contact information and become a lead ?
Find these numbers out if you do not know them and then raise them !
This is absolutely critical! In fact, I cannot stress this enough but let’s continue with secret #2…
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Secret #2:
7-9 Times a Lady
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On average it takes a prospect 7-9 exposures to you before they will buy.
This is why a lot of companies put money into branding and ad campaigns that get the word out and stick in people’s minds. They know it takes repeated exposures, no matter how good your message or product is.
So if your site makes 1% sales. What happens to the other 99% ?
They go on their merry way. You have a kind of one-chance shot to get them and make the sale or not right ?
Well not really, the business world is catching up to what savvy internet marketers have known for a long time. The Money Is In The List !
If you get people to opt-in and subscribe to your list/newsletter/e-zine you can market to them over and over and over again. En Masse. You can send them special offers and product promotions. You can get their feedback and input on your products and business.
THE MONEY IS IN THE LIST.
Now this is something that’s pretty well known online, but there are still very few companies doing it and doing it properly.
Even if they are doing it they do it as an after thought. A timid little e-mail capture box meekly asking you to subscribe to their mailing list.
This is the most powerful tactic online and the most misunderstood and misused. Very few companies are getting the value from this that they should do.
This should be your number one tactic online. Getting people onto your list. Then you can market them your products time and time again.
So many companies and websites just go straight for the sale. A one shot deal. Either they buy or not, onto the next.
With a little creative thinking, any company, selling absolutely anything can come up with a compelling offer to get people onto their list.
It is the most simple yet effective and powerful tactic on the internet.
If you build a list you can market time and time and time again, at least 7-9 times a lady !
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Secret #3:
Compel Me
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Now you may be thinking that building a list and marketing to your prospects over and over again is pretty obvious. But it is the simplest techniques that are the most powerful.
In any area, it is the fundamentals that hold all the power. If the right building blocks are in place then you have the ability to quickly and easily scale and grow your business.
Too many businesses that we see want the latest fancy dan websites and gimmicks. But their foundations and building blocks are weak. They struggle to market themselves online, and with good reason.
Building a list is absolutely crucial. It should not be just a thing that you do. Something that you tag on to your homepage almost as an after thought.
It should be the entire purpose of your homepage and indeed website. To get people on your list.
We see all kinds of fancy idea websites, with home pages giving people a million different choices and options. A million different distractions , competing for their attention.
Yet it is the savvy internet marketers making millions online. With a simple 1 page capture site and follow up.
Make your home or landing page geared to have one focus and one focus only. The capture of your prospects details and information.
Offer them bonuses, free reports, discounts. Put up sales copy that sells and compels them on the benefits of opting in.
COMPEL them to join. It’s not an after thought, it’s the purpose of your page. If I was a prospect , why would I join your list ?
Well if you gave me free reports, bonuses and discounts that helped to solve my problems and fulfill my needs I would. If you explained about the great free content and value you were going to give me I would.
And how would you know what my greatest needs and desires are and the biggest problems I have ?
Well if you have a list, you can engage them in dialogue, surveys, questionnaires that get your market to tell you what they want. Then just offer it as an incentive for people to join your list.
Very simple, very powerful, but not done by 99% of businesses online that claim they know all about building a list.
As they say, knowing and doing are a million miles a part.
Don’t just give lip-service to the idea and claim “ oh I know that “. If you know it, do it. And make it the whole focus and point of your online sales process.
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Secret #4:
The Fortune Is In The Follow Up
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Or the subheading :
When everyone else is pushing, step back and pull !
There’s nothing worse than chasing business, it can be hard work, ungratifying and stressful. As someone who used to work in direct telephone sales, I came to hate the practice of cold selling.
But what if you can flip that on it’s head and have people calling YOU wanting your services. The ideal scenario right ?
That is exactly what you want, and that is exactly what building a list the right way does for you.
This is something we came across in the network marketing world when we were doing some work for a company in that industry.
We decided that network marketing was a great method of providing residual , leveraged income and so set about studying the experts in that field that were doing internet network marketing.
A recent evolution of the old network marketing methods that involved calling people on the phone, getting them to meetings at houses and cheesy pre-scripted sales talk. Basically ,a lot of old school, dark ages tactics that leave you with a knot in your stomach.
No-one wants to do them, the industry has a 99% failure rate and it’s easy to see why.
Anyway, we came across a couple of guys that had figured it out and were well ahead of the game. The next level, the evolution of network marketers. The internet network marketers.
Here’s why this is so relevant to you !
They realised that a) you sell to buyers . i.e people already in network marketing. So if you are in the business of selling software, your target market is people that have bought or are looking to buy software.
Seems obvious when put like that, but the more targeted the marketing the better. Lets say you are selling software and you place an ad in a newspaper. You are marketing to about 90% of people who read the paper that have no interest in purchasing software. Targeted traffic and exposure is everything.
These internet network marketers knew that there is a big difference in marketing to people looking to make more money, and marketing to experienced network marketers that have already crossed the bridge and convinced themselves that network marketing is a good idea. A massive difference in fact.
So anyway that leads me onto the second point, which is
b) don’t sell your product , solve a problem.
Now this is something that you will find very few mainstream companies doing. The savvy internet marketers have it down, and it is slowly seeping into some mainstream business but most big companies are about 10 years away from understanding this. Just look at their marketing, it’s all about OUR products, OUR history, OUR record.
The internet network marketers were a lot more subtle, and so should you be. When everyone else is pushing , step back and pull.
So here’s what the network marketers did.
They placed targeted ads that were read by network marketers and just network marketers, Straight to their target audience.
But they didn’t go screaming “ join our opportunity, here are the great benefits “ , because that’s what everyone else was doing. They decided to go for a much more laid back and subtle approach that skyrocketed their sign-ups and made them millionaires.
Quite simply they advertised free reports and articles that helped solved the problems of the network marketers they were targeting. They got them to opt-in for a free report like “ Top Network Marketing Strategies To Boost Sign–Ups and Explode your Business.”
They just gave away these free reports that any network marketer in any company could access and apply to help them build their own businesses.
They didn’t push their opportunity or their company, they simply gave away all their best techniques and tactics that helped solve their prospects problems.
They gave great content and value that genuinely helped solve the problems they faced in their business, and they asked nothing for it. They also took the time to publish a monthly newsletter that gave away more great free content, strategies and articles.
Do you see what’s going on here and how this worked for them ?
They were not going out shouting “ come and join us , this opportunity is great, here’s why you should join .“
They were positioning themselves.
They did not need to sell themselves or their products or company to their prospects. They sat back and let their prospects sell themselves !
Their content that they gave away was great content. Great value that genuinely helped. This is key, delivering great content and genuinely helping your prospect, before expecting any kind of pay-off in return.
The content positioned them as experts in their field for them. They did not have to go and sell themselves. Their excellent content did it for them.
No cheesy sales talk, or hype, no high-pressure sales tactics. These guys actually had people ringing them up wanting to join them because they could see that they knew what they were talking about and agreed with their methods.
Here is why this is so powerful.
The prospects sold themselves Implicitly !
If you are selling a product or service you can do what everyone else does and sell Explicitly ….
“ Here is my product / company, this is why we are so great.”
You are telling them and they decide whether to agree with you are not.
The savvy internet network marketers tapped into that part of the human brain that is ever so more powerful. The bit that comes to it’s own conclusions , implicitly, and stands by and defends those decisions for a long time because it has come up with the decision all on it’s own. It has not been pressured or pushed into it.
I can either tell you how great my products or services are explicitly ( I don’t mean in a pornographic way or anything J ) .
Or I can show you I know what I am talking about, and have you make an implicit decision that I know what I’m talking about and have you contact me off your own back, wanting to work with me.
Which do you think is more powerful. Which will create long lasting relationships that have you buying over and over and over gain ( if I provide you with great content and value that actually solves your problem ).
I tell you or I show you ? EXPLICIT v IMPLICIT
Understand this and you can pull whilst everyone else is pushing and create an army of raving fans , clamouring to contact you wanting your business.
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Secret #5:
A Relationship Is For Life Not Just For Christmas
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Ok , so there are many ways you can adapt and apply the principal above to your own business, whatever it may be.
Once you have people implicitly trusting you, your techniques and products and your advice, you are in a unique position.
And you can remain there for a long time if your deliver value.
If you deliver great content that quickly gives way to impatient sales pitches you will quickly lose my trust and patience and I will be reaching for the unsubscribe link. All that hard work wasted.
But if you make this the core of your strategy and give it the attention and focus it deserves you can turn your sales process into a smooth, almost effortless automated machine that pays you time and time again.
You must continue to deliver great content, time and time again. If you have a weekly newsletter , you must take the time to over-deliver with great content and value first and foremost before you think about monetizing your traffic / subscribers.
Again this goes back to Implicit vs Explicit.
The human brain is wired to respond in certain ways to certain stimulus. We can’t help it, it’s buried deep down in our psyche.
One of the strongest impulses we have is Reciprocation.
If I give you a load of great stuff that helps solve your particular problems. When it comes time that I ask a favour from you, you are pre-conditioned to respond. You are pre-conditioned to want to help me, because I have helped you. You can’t help it J
But this must all be done genuinely or it does not work. You have to over–deliver the great content and value first. Monetize second.
Do this right and have an army of loyal fans, that will buy from you again and again, as long as you keep over-delivering great value and content.
This relationship can last for years and years, even for life. If you engage with it , make it interactive. Ask your subscribers what they want, send them surveys, get to know what they want and how they respond to certain offers.
The more of a two-way street you make this, the better. Start a blog where people can submit questions, answer them for everyone to see, be transparent, be trustworthy.
Build a fan base and they will follow you !
Then as we will see in the next secret, there are a million ways of monetizing.
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Secret #6:
The Right Cross and The Upper Cut !
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How to turn your list of raving fans into happy customers.
Ok, so now you have begun to build your list. You are building it in the right way, taking a long term view , delivering great value and content first and foremost. Your list likes and trusts you and doesn’t mind at all by reciprocating when the time is right to monetize your list with some well chosen offers, in fact because of the way you present the offer , they thank you for it.
I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that the real value in any customer is the repeat business. If they buy from you 5 times over their lifetimes it is 1/5 the cost of getting 5 new customers that make 1 purchase each.
Repeat business is the most cost effective way to boost your sales, at little or no extra effort. And with a well treated, responsive list you have the perfect tool to help you.
Ideally your list should foster a sense of community, they should appreciate being the first to know, the first to try out special offers or new product ranges, consulted on their opinions about your products or services.
Your list can be an interactive community of loyal consumers if they are treated well.
So how , do you go about making the money ?
Well it’s incredibly simple.
First of all, people are not stupid, they already know that by being on your list they will receive advertisements and promotions. If you craft your offer right, it can be one of the reasons they sign up for your list in the first place.
You then turn them into totally satisfied customers by rewarding their loyalty.
Offer them unadvertised sales just for them. Discounts just for them. Give them first access to product releases. Get their feedback on launches. Make them feel special. Like they are getting a deal that no-one else is or knows about.
But here’s , the thing. THEY ARE. There’s nothing devious or deceptive going on here. You are reciprocating their loyalty , that they reciprocate to you. Back and forth it goes, repeat purchase after repeat purchase, if the value and offers are good.
Foster that sense of community and loyalty by being genuine and offering value to this trusted, responsive list, that cannot be had elsewhere. Then encourage it to grow virally, with things like tell afriend scripts and affiliate commissions to your list for referring others.
And you always have the right cross and the upper cut to give you a multitude of options when it comes to making money from your list.
CROSS SELL, with your partners or non competing companies that would be happy to offer your subscribers a great deal. Get them deals that they cannot get anywhere else. Find out what else they are interested in, what else they might want and cut deals with companies to partner up and offer these great deals to your list. Again at a discount they can’t get anywhere else.
UPSELL, your other products. Again offering your private discounts. Use proven sales campaigns to offer these discount up-sells and cross-sells only for a limited time, or with limited fast action bonuses. Train your list to expect, anticipate and be responsive to these great offers. Expect them to take action and reciprocate and as long as the offers are good and providing value both ways, they will.
However, in order to effectively use the other secrets here you’ve got to know our last secret.
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Secret #7:
Traffic, Traffic, Traffic
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How to find targeted, responsive people for your list !
Remember the internet network marketing guys from secret 4 ?
Once they had their sales process where they wanted it to be, it was time for them to turn on the traffic.
Most companies online do this backwards. They turn on the traffic first and cross their fingers and hope for the best. A few will make their money back, most won’t.
It is also how the big ad companies can blow through your budget very very quickly.
You see, the big ad companies work on a different level than the internet marketers. For an internet marketer, every ad must be tracked down to the last penny. They are the same as the direct response marketers off-line. Testing and tracking all the bits because they know that they need to get it right first, before they turn traffic on to it.
The big ad companies and many big companies and corporations that are their clients don’t care. They honestly don’t care. But that is because they are playing a different game. The ad companies just brand you. They work on the off-line marketing theory off exposure and repetition not tracking and testing from ad to sale.
Many of them can’t even tell you which ads resulted in sales.
Many big companies advertise in exactly the same way. They have a big ad budget, give it to an ad company to brand across a load of sites. No-one knows or really cares how many sales have been made. It is all a branding exercise.
Smaller companies can’t afford to do this, and slowly, larger companies are waking up to the fact that there is a smarter way to advertise that will make them much more sales for their advertising spend.
But it’s all in the tracking. Which are the best ads to run ? Have you compared the click through rates, one against the other ? You need to know this before marketing en masse.
Which websites give you the most converting customers into leads and sales? Again , pretty relevant information.
Which headline, body copy and call to action pulls the most people in from your ads?
It’s all tracking and testing.
As is finding out where you can get the best value visitors from. You can quickly and easily test pay per click traffic from Google, Yahoo and MSN and see which gives you the best results.
You can do the same with banner ads on targeted websites, e-mail cpm drops and e-zine ads. A little piece of code and tracking software is all it needs.
Then when you have found a winning ad and traffic source that your landing page is converting profitable into sales, scale it up, ramp it up to as much traffic as you can get from that source and cut out all the non-converting traffic sources.
Focus your efforts onto the traffic sources that work and cut out all the rest.
Find out your numbers. Test small and cheaply and ramp up the winners. Don’t throw arrows in the dark !
You may be a big company that can afford to waste $50,000 a month just on branding. But wouldn’t it be better to take that $50,000 a month and find out how to turn it into $100,000 in sales?
I’m sure it would mean a big pay-rise and promotion for you.
There are many sources of traffic and depending on your business and products, they will perform differently for you.
But the beauty of the internet is you can test small, optimize, find the winners and ramp it up, knowing that if you get $150 back from $100. You will get $150,000 back from $100,000.
It’s just a matter of cheaply testing and finding the winners !
And Finally …….
It is often the simplest techniques that are the most effective, and that goes double for the world of online marketing.
Testing and tracking everything, basing your online efforts around building an e-mail list and folllowing up regularly with your list with good quality, free content that helps solve their problems.
Convert more of your visitors to leads, convert more leads into sales and then cross-sell and upsell more of your products to your list.
Do the simple things well and the results will astound you.
Thanks for reading,
Kind Regards,
Richard Paylor
