Scott Anthony of the Harvard Business Review did a piece on “3 Ways to Prioritize a Long List of Ideas, which you can read here…
It’s all about how to choose what it is that you should do next, which product to run with, which decision to make and so forth. Of course it’s written with large companies in mind, but the essence applies just as well to the Online Marketer. For example…
When choosing which product to create next, don’t always trust what people say they will do.
Rather, trust what they do. When I survey my readers to find out what they want to buy next, I also take into consideration that they may not know their own minds.
For example, if you ask someone what they want to eat tomorrow, they’re likely to say they want something healthy like a salad. But when tomorrow comes, more often than not they will order the pizza or pasta instead. It’s not that they weren’t telling you the truth; it’s just that people tend to think about the future in one way and act in the present in a different way. They’re certain tomorrow is the day they buckle down and do their work, or go on a diet, or begin exercising. Today? Let’s watch TV and eat chocolate cake.
So when you survey your customers asking what they want to buy, realize that what they say isn’t necessarily so.
Limit studying and planning. Prioritize action.
If all you’re doing is studying and planning so that you can make the right decision, then you’re not acting. And without action, there can be no reward. As Anthony states, visualize success and then figure out what you need to do to get there. For example, if you visualize your next success as selling a thousand copies of your new training program, figure out what you need to do to make it happen, and then do it. If you get stuck on the planning, you’ll never get anywhere.
Look for ideas and solutions outside of the box.
Whatever your niche of choice might be, don’t confine your explorations and learning to just your niche. Explore other avenues outside of your realm to see how they solve problems and how that might be applicable to your niche. Becoming myopic to your own area of expertise to the exclusion of all others can mean you’re missing out on stellar ideas to increase your bottom line.
Here’s a simple example: Angie has her own line of make-up products targeted to women over 50 that she sells exclusively online, and she’s been struggling with lead generation. The other day she received her order of vitamins from a well known health company with millions of customers, and it hit her: What if she asked this company to place a postcard promoting her website in every box that contained one or more products designed exclusively for this target market?
Most online marketers would never even think of this – yet it’s an excellent way to get her website in front of her exact target market. And all it will cost her is the printing, since the health company is taking a percentage of sales as her affiliate rather than a flat fee for inserting the postcards.
Sometimes we find ourselves bogged down while trying to decide what to do next or how to do it – when really all we need are simple systems to keep us moving, and our business growing.
If you’re using Paypal to take payments, here’s a neat little trick to increase your sales…
When someone adds your product to the shopping cart, it takes them to the Paypal checkout page. The problem is, some people will back out of the purchase at this point. However, what most marketers don’t seem to know is that Paypal allows you to place a banner at the top of this checkout page. Moreover, what you choose to place in this banner can reduce shopping cart abandonment by allaying your customer’s fear.
For example, recently when I purchased a product I saw a banner at the top of the Paypal checkout page that actually asked me to visit another website to sign up for a different product launch! This is obviously NOT the way to use this banner space.
Instead, do what I saw one enterprising entrepreneur do the other day – create a simple banner with a short TESTIMONIAL in it for the product they are about to purchase.
It can be something as brief as:
I Can’t Believe This is Available for Such a Low Price.
– Customer Name
or
ABC Product Saved Me $xxxx in Just The First 3 Months.
– Customer Name
Be sure to use quotes and the person’s full name – and if applicable, their company name. This provides third party validation that the buyer is in fact making a smart decision by purchasing your offer, and thus reduce your Paypal shopping cart abandonment rate.
Of course, this same tip can be applied to any shopping cart or online checkout experience really. Using social proof to reinforce your buyers confidence just before checkout will boost your sales.
Now just make sure you are giving your customers experiences WORTH writing you glowing reviews and testimonials for and you’ll be all set!
If you look at the wealthiest people in America today – Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Michael Dell, Paul Allen – you’ll notice they’re all first generation multi-billionaires.
And here’s the wonderful thing: If you do what other successful people do, you’ll eventually get a similar result to what they got, depending on things like timing and market, of course.
But let’s say you only do 1/10th as good. Or even 1/100th or 1/1000th. That’s still better than if you did nothing.
So look at what successful people do. Copy them in your own way. Expect it to take work. And time. And lots of effort.
And then be proud of your results, whatever they might be.
I hesitate to share this with you for two reasons:
One, it’s super sneaky and ultra-powerful.
Two, I’m wondering if everyone starts to do this, will it dilute the effect it has on prospects?
Heck with it, I’m going to share it with you anyway.
Next time you are designing an ad, website, book cover, etc., try this:
Use the color red to call attention, but combine that red with blue.
The blue has a calming effect. The red is shouting, “Hey, over here, this is important!”
Then when the prospect comes over, the blue color is like handing her a nice soothing cup of hot cocoa.
It’s the best of both worlds, and they’ll never know why they were so drawn to your visual media. It doesn’t take a genius to grow online profits… Just implement proven strategies.
There’s been a trend online for the last 20 years to write sales letters that are shorter and have more and more graphics and fancy images.
But just because everyone is doing it, does that make it the most effective form of selling?
Maybe not.
Do you remember direct mail selling?
You get a fat white envelope in the mail, and inside is a long form sales letter. No fancy graphics, just plenty of great copy.
Here’s the thing: Anybody and everybody can throw up a sales letter online. And they do.
But when it comes to direct mail, these companies are hiring the best of the best copywriters to write their letters.
How do I know? Because no company in their right mind is going to spend the money to mail thousands (hundreds of thousands, even millions) of these letters unless they know for a FACT that they’re going to convert.
And how do they know? Because they test them. They pit one version against another to determine which one is more effective, and that becomes the control.
Then they write another version and test that against the previous winner, and they keep this up until they are making serious money.
Then they mail out these letters by the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, and the money rolls in.
These are the best of the best in sales letters, and they’re not to be confused with online sales letters in quality.
After all, it costs nothing to slap a letter up on the internet and see if anything sticks.
But mailing out thousands of letters the old fashioned way is a serious investment – which is also why these companies are willing to pay the very best writers 5 figures plus royalties to write these letters.
So, get on as many mailing lists as possible and when these letters start coming in, read and re-read them.
Dissect why they work, and then use them as templates for your own letters.
I have a friend who is experimenting with this very technique, and his first try out of the gate more than DOUBLED his sales compared to the sales letter he was using.
He simply took a sales letter that he’s received in the mail twice (a sure sign it’s converting) and he used it as a template for his online letter for his own product.
He didn’t use any graphics at all. No flash and no sparkle – just a plain old sales letter full of words that convinced his online buyers to… BUY.
Try it. You never know – maybe you’ll double your sales, too.
If you’re a product seller, you already know that not all affiliates are created equal.
Some will never promote. Others promote once and disappear. And a small percentage will promote your products over and over, making a lion’s share of sales for you.
So how do you recruit great affiliates?
While there is no one answer, there are many ways to find and recruit those key affiliates who will take your business to the next level.
1: “Wanna Promote?”
Contacting websites, blogs and other web publishers.
Send them a well-written email to ask them in a very polite way if they would like to become your affiliate.
You’ll likely have to contact a lot of people to get results, but it can be totally worth the effort.
2: Use a Service
Use a service to locate potential affiliates by category, keyword or advertiser.
3: Bloggers
Group High is a site that will help you find the best bloggers and influencers, as well as manage your relationships.
4: Outsource
If you have the funds, you can hire a service such as Experience Advertising to do your outreach and recruiting for you.
5: Use PPC Search Ads
Did you know that affiliates are actively looking for great programs to promote? You can find them by running PPC ads in Google Adwords and Bing Ads.
Don’t forget to track to see which ads are bringing in the most effective affiliates.
6: SEO’d Affiliate Pages
Create a page just for affiliates. Then optimize that page for SEO results, so when people are searching for affiliate programs in your niche, they can find you in the organic search results.
7: Press Releases
Write press releases for online distribution. Press releases can be another way to gain traction in the organic rankings.
8: Facebook Ads
Did you know you can find affiliates on Facebook? Target people who are interested in affiliate marketing and blogging in your niche.
9: Networks
Launch your product on an affiliate network.
There are many to choose from, including Clickbank, Commissions Junction, JVZoo, Linkshare and Sharesale.
In some cases you might want to screen affiliates from these networks to be sure you’re only dealing with reputable people.
10: In Person
Trade shows, summits and conferences are great places to meet new affiliates. You might even consider getting a booth at some of these events, so affiliates are coming to you instead of you hunting them down.
11: Affiliate Forums
Build and maintain a presence on affiliate forums. These are great places to meet and recruit affiliates. Here’s a few to get you started:
Twitter is a good place to meet potential affiliates. Search for your keywords to find who is talking about your niche, and then follow them and start interacting.
13: LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a great place to meet affiliates and just network in general. You can post and participate in discussions and connect with people in a professional atmosphere.
14: Talk to Your Customers
This is a great way to get new affiliates who truly use and believe in your product. Reach out to your buyers and see who would like to be your affiliate, and take it from there.
15: Customer Referral Program
Tools such as Referral Candy and Friend Buy make it super easy to set up and run a customer referral program.
Plus it automates the process, so you can put your focus elsewhere.
16: Your Own Site
Place a link on your website. This is perhaps the most simple, yet most overlooked technique of all.
Place a link at the bottom of your website, and anywhere else you choose, pointing people to your affiliate page.
17: You Promote Mine, I’ll Promote Yours
Approach other product sellers and offer to do a deal in which you promote each other’s product.
A few notes about this one: Obviously you want to find product owners in your same niche.
You want to love their product enough to promote it – don’t promote junk just to make some sales of your own.
And while many will tell you that you cannot be direct competitors to do this, it’s simply not true. For example, let’s say you have a product that teaches traffic generation techniques.
You find another product that also teaches traffic generation techniques, so naturally they seem like a direct competitor. But the actual techniques they teach are somewhat different from yours.
I can tell you right now that your customers are not buying just one product on generating traffic – they’re buying several. You can be the affiliate who introduces them to a traffic course you truly believe in, and in return get your own product promoted as well.
18: It’s Super Affiliate!
Look for super affiliates – the top affiliate performers who can generate significant revenue for the merchants they choose to promote.
They’re going to be looking for high conversion rates and a decent percentage of the profits.
Be sure you’ve got everything running smoothly and converting well before asking them to promote. If they make a lot of sales, they may continue to promote you into the future.
But if there are technical glitches or low conversions, you will never hear from them again.
19: Spy
Watch to see who is promoting similar offers. If you’re about to launch that traffic program, so some research to find out who the top affiliates were for previous traffic programs.
Perhaps the easiest way to do the research is proactively. Sign up as an affiliate yourself so you can see who the top promoters are, and contact them well in advance of your own launch.
20: Contests
Run an incentive contest, promote it everywhere. Running a contest with cash prizes for top performers will entice new affiliates to join your affiliate program.
21: Affiliates Recruiting Affiliates
Offer an incentive to current affiliates to bring in new affiliates. Affiliates know other affiliates. And offering a percentage of profits on their affiliate recruits is a great way to incentivize them to do your affiliate recruiting for you.
Above all else, take care of your best affiliates and keep them happy. Affiliates can make or break your business. If just one affiliate has a bad experience with you, they can potentially tell dozens of others to steer clear. Once this happens, you’ll find it very difficult to recruit new affiliates.
But when you treat your affiliates well, they will send you sales – often a surprising number of them.
Just think – all it takes is one really good affiliate to add 5 figures to your business.
A half dozen of these affiliates promoting you on a regular basis can move you into the 6 figure range. All for just recruiting and taking care of your best people.
This method costs you nothing but time – yet it can add mightily to your bottom line. As you already know, a buyer is worth far, far more than a simple subscriber, and here’s how to get buyers added to your list for free…
Step 1: Create a short report that solves a key problem. In other words, one problem, one solution. Simple. Now give it a great title. In fact, spend as much time on the title as you did writing the report, because the title has to grab attention and get people to read it cover to cover.
Step 2: Repeat step 1, only with a different problem and solution in the same niche.
Step 3: Set up a squeeze page to offer Report #2 for free in exchange for your prospect’s email address.
Step 4: At the end (and possibly the beginning) of Report #1, write teaser copy to entice them to go to your squeeze page and grab Report #2. If you did a good job of giving great content in Report #1, this should be easy because they’re going to be eager to read more from you.
Step 5: Go to forums and give away Report #1 with Master Resale Rights. This means they can sell the report or give it away with paid products, but they cannot alter the report in any way. This is crucial because you don’t want your link altered or removed.
Step 6: They add your report as a bonus to their paid products, or sell it outright for a nominal fee such as $7. People read it, love it, and go to your squeeze page to give you their email address so they can get more great stuff from you, like Report #2.
That’s it. It’s a system you set up once and forget about, other than periodically checking to see how many new buyers have been added to your list. The beauty of this system is 4-fold…
– It’s fairly easy.
– You only have to set it up once and then you can forget about it.
– You’re building a list of buyers and buyers ONLY.
– You’re building your list on other people’s traffic.
As always, your numbers and results might vary, but here’s what Rainy (not her real name) is achieving with one day of work per week…
She creates a product each week which she then sells to just 25 people at $25 each. Limiting the number of copies sold creates scarcity, and she usually sells out in about half a day.
You can do this if you have an internet marketing list or an internet marketing social media group. The point is you need an audience to offer this to, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a list.
In Rainy’s case she doesn’t even have a website. When she offers the product each week, she does it through a Facebook Group and her own small list. She instructs buyers to send her the money through PayPal and then post on Facebook that they’re in.
This creates excitement as people see the copies are being snapped up. Anyone on the fence about buying realizes they better jump in quick or they’ll lose out.
The product Rainy creates each week is a directory of the top offers in online marketing for the week. She gives the names, URL’s, descriptions, conversion rates, backgrounds of the authors and her own personal insights. This information is super valuable to anyone who promotes internet marketing products to their list.
But it’s also valuable to the people on these lists, which is why Rainy gives PLR rights to the weekly directory. Buyers can give it away or sell it without rights, and they know it won’t be saturated because only 25 copies are sold.
At least a couple of her regular customers offer these reports as freebies to get internet marketers to join their list, and it’s quite effective. Essentially, they are paying $25 every week or two to provide fresh, timely content to their new subscribers.
Of course, if you want to follow this business model, you don’t necessarily need to write about the latest offering in online marketing. Anything that is timely and of interest to others has potential.
And if you find that your weekly offerings are selling well, you might consider launching them into a paid membership, too, for even more money.
So many times we don’t want to tackle anything new until we know step by step what we’re going to do and how we ‘re going to do it.
You might call it the paralysis of analysis – instead of taking action we…
…think about how we’ll do it and …try to work out all the details and …do more research and …think about it some more until …enough time passes that we …just blow it off and decide we’re going to do something else.
Hopefully you can see why this step-by-step mentality can be a real motivation killer for you. You’ll never know every step it’s going to take to achieve something because you simply don’t know everything that’s going to happen (and not happen) along the way.
Personally, I think all you need are 2 things to get started on any project: You need to know what your end goal is, and you need the first step to take to begin moving towards that goal. Oh yes, and then you need to TAKE that first step. Once step 1 is out of the way, step 2 will reveal itself and so forth.
With this mindset there is nothing to bog you down and nothing to get in the way of taking action and making progress, even if the progress turns out to be discovering a way that does not work. Remember Edison and the light bulb – he discovered hundreds of ways NOT to make a bulb, clearing the way to inventing it.
Dean Hunt has his own take on the step-by-step mindset of knowing every step you’re going to take before you begin the journey. In fact, he has a brilliant 3 letter word for it – but I won’t steal his thunder, so you’ll want to watch his short video to discover what that word is…
