Author Archive | Lawrence

Okay, this one will take a little legwork, but it is work you’ll be doing anyway. Only this time, it will pay off double. Here’s how it works: Every marketer winds up hosting downloads, pdf’s, zipped files, redirects, cloaked affiliate links, images and a bunch of other things. The way we do it is generally like this: yourdomain.com/buythisproductnow.

Now then, to make this work you’ll want to get a domain name that you use only for hosting all of this stuff. It should be a catchy name that directly pertains to your niche – something that arouses interest and curiosity all by itself. For example, TheNakedMarketer.com or TakeThisJobAndShoveIt.org.

Host everything on subdomains of this domain. As you get traffic to all of these subdomains, a funny thing is going to happen: You’re going to get traffic to your root domain as well. Even though you never send anyone there, people are going to get curious, lop off the part after the slash in your domain name and see what’s on the home page.

This is where you make your money. You can either put up a squeeze page that’s followed by a one time offer, or you can redirect it straight to an affiliate offer.

If you get 500 people a month going to this domain, and only one out of 5 joins your list, that’s still 1200 new subscribers a year. PLUS whatever sales you make from the one time offer. If you position your squeeze page correctly, you should get a conversion rate much, much closer to 50%.

Now then, if everyone you’re already sending to these downloads, redirects and so forth are already subscribers, then don’t use a squeeze page. Instead, redirect that domain straight to your highest converting offer of the moment. Even a handful of sales a month can translate into a thousand dollars or more per year, just for doing this one simple thing.

And since you have to place your downloads, redirects, cloaked links and everything else somewhere anyway, why not make some money from it?

Even if you’ve never made a video before in your life, you can do this. And once you have your videos, you can sell them, use them as lead magnets, use them as bonuses to affiliate products and so forth. You can even use them to establish your authority and credibility in your marketplace.

Here’s how you can quickly start making your own video products:

– Download the free screen capture video program called Snagit. You can download it at TechSmith or Google to find other websites that offer it.

– Decide on what kind of video or video set you’re making and the purpose of it. Is it a training? Or an info product? How about a video for a sales page, or maybe a lead generator on YouTube. It could be the video you put on your squeeze page, or the incentive you use to get people to join your list.

If you’re making a product, then keep it simple. Look at what is already selling so you’ll know ahead of time that there is a market for your new product. Look at what Kindle titles are selling, what info products are selling and so forth.

– Now that you know what you’re going to make, break it down into steps. If you’re making a product, for example, then break it down into problem, analysis and solution. Each step will be one video of 5 minutes or less. If one of the steps takes longer than 5 minutes to explain, then break that step into two videos. Think of these as video mini-trainings.

– Create 3 to 4 PowerPoint or Keynote slides for each step, or plan a short demo for each step. If you’re using PowerPoint, then choose ‘browse by individual’ so it can be resized to any size screen. Write the steps as bullet points. Use 3 to 4 bullet points per slide.

– Open up Snagit and narrate as you make your video. The bullet points cue you as to what to say for each slide. Just talk your way through each step as though you were talking to someone there in the room.

– Once you’ve got your videos, you can either host them on your site, use a hosting service like Amazon, or place them on another site like YouTube. As you upload each video, grab the URL and paste it into a Word document in order: Step 1, Step 2 and so forth. Obviously if this is a paid product, you’ll want your videos to be hosted somewhere out of the public eye.

– Write short narrative descriptions for each video and place them above the corresponding links in your word document, to let your readers or buyers know what each video is all about. This document will act as your introduction to your product.

– Then save the document as a PDF. If you’re selling the series, you can deliver the PDF, and buyers can click the links and watch the videos.

You can even give away the first videos, and then offer to sell them access to the remaining videos. For example, on your PDF you show the first 3 video links, then you have descriptions of the rest of the videos but no links. If they buy the product, they get the links to those videos.

It’s a very simple way to make a video product, and you can do it all in less than a day.

Snagit can be used for a lot more than making products, and it’s an excellent way for new marketers to play with video and get results very, very quickly.

How do you get your readers to RACE to open your emails the moment they arrive in their inbox? Here’s one way to do it. It’s kind of sneaky but if you condition your readers properly, it can work really, really well.

First, you already know that paying customers are worth far, far more than freebie seekers. So why not make an offer to your freebie seekers that even they cannot refuse?

And in the process, why not get them to open (and read) your emails?

Here’s how it works: Every few days or every few emails, you have one of your links go to a wonderful $1 or $5 deal, but only for the first x number of people.

This might be a product that normally sells for a great deal more, a resale product, something you no longer sell, etc. So long as it still has real value, you can use it.

Your link can be obvious or disguised. For example, you might send an email promoting xyz product, but your link goes to your special offer until it’s sold out, and then it directs back to the xyz offer. And on your special offer page, be sure to have a prominent link to the offer mentioned in the email.

The following day, you can congratulate those who got the special deal, and remind the other readers that they, too, can grab these deals if they pay attention and if they’re fast.

You’ll want to condition your readers ahead of time to always be looking for these deals by opening your emails and clicking your links.

You can even get tricky. You can have the link go where you say it will, but then embed an Easter egg on the page that leads to the special offer. If they read your email, they’ll know where to find it.

There is a trade-off here. While you are conditioning your readers to open your emails and click your links, you’re also training them to look for special deals. So while your opens and clicks should rise dramatically, the money you make per open and per click could drop off slightly. You’ll want to test this.

Odds are you’ll still make more money because so many more people are opening and reading your emails and clicking your links. This means more sales of the products you promote, not just the special deals.

Would you like to add a new income stream to an existing business? Or are you looking for a brand new business? Then check this out.

First, you need knowledge. If you don’t have it, then obviously you can get it. It’s got to be specialized knowledge. Maybe you’re an expert at a certain software program, or a WordPress expert, or you know everything there is to know about how to drop to 5% body fat. Whatever it is, it’s got to be knowledge that other people want NOW.

Next, you need a way to get your consulting in front of the people who need it. Let’s say you’re an affiliate for a software or program that you personally know inside and out. You keep a mailing list of everyone who’s visited your site or bought the product from you.

These people sometimes email you with questions about the product. “How do I… ?” “Where is the… ?” “When so and so happens, what do I do?” And so forth. Being the good affiliate you are, you probably answer these questions. And you’re good at it, too.

But what if you could get paid to do it? Set up a page on your site offering your consulting service by email. Charge a reasonable fee, like $27 or $47 for the day or for the week, whatever is appropriate for the information you have to offer.

Remember, a certain percentage of people would much rather have someone show them how to do something than to have to figure it out for themselves. And they will gladly pay you for making their life easier.

That’s really all there is to it. Answer their questions by email, and remember – you are a consultant, not a technical advisor (unless you are.) This way you can focus on the types of questions you’re good at.

Bonus tip: Spend some time in forums finding out what the most common questions are about the topic, and then SEO your site to get high rankings for several of the well searched keywords. Then on every page of your site, point them in the direction of your consulting.

Your consulting can even help you to sell more affiliate products, because you will be building trust with your readers that you are in fact an expert. Thus when you recommend something, it’s really and truly worth buying.

I know I preach about picking something and staying focused on that something until you make it a success, but there are exceptions, and this is a big one. There are certain products you should probably grab whenever you see them. These are “how to” products on marketing techniques that contain three little words that can be a goldmine for you – “Step by step.”

The reason I love these is because for a very cheap price – usually less than $40 and sometimes only $10 – you get a complete step by step system on how to do something.

You might buy 2 or 3 of these a week. Then when you’ve got time, go through each one. Read the PDF’s and watch the videos.

Decide if you think the technique is something you can apply to your business. If it is, try it out. You might set aside one afternoon each week to try a new step by step technique.

Then wait and see what happens. Sometimes you see results right away and other times it takes a while, depending on what the technique might be.

You’re watching to see if it works. For example, if it’s a technique on how to get traffic then you’re watching to see if: You get traffic and if that traffic converts.

Once you know it works, you apply the fourth magic word – Outsourcing.

That’s right – you give your “how to” product to your outsourcer, along with any notes you’ve made when you implemented it yourself, and have them do it for you.

The first day they might send you a few emails with questions, but it won’t take you much time to answer them.

Then you just let them run with it and watch your numbers. Make sure you’re making more from results of the system than you’re paying the outsourcer and you’re good to go.

One of the best things about “step by step” products is they’re written for the average person, not a rocket scientist marketer. They have to be, or else the product creator would get a million questions. This makes it super easy to hand it off to another person to do the actual work for you. As long as the technique results in more income than outlay, it’s a winner.

And all you invested was the initial price of the ‘how to’ program, along with an afternoon to try it out for yourself.

To give an example: Let’s say you pick up 5 new ‘how to get traffic’ systems. 4 of them work well, so you outsource those and forget about the fifth one.

The new traffic results in X amount of new subscribers and X amount of new sales. Maybe it’s 1,000 new subscribers a month, and $1,500 in sales the first month, $500 the second month on those 1,000 subscribers.

So as long as you’re paying your outsourcer less than $2,000 a month (which is easy to do) you’re in profit.

This is a great way to add extra income to your existing business without a lot of time and effort on your part.

So remember to use these 4 magic words – “Step by step” and “Outsourcing.”

And one more thing: If you have a fistful of resell products sitting on your hard drive, take a look at those. You never know what step by step technique you’re going to find that you can use to help build your business through outsourcing.

Print and keep this checklist handy for the next time you send a promotional email to your list or to a prospect if you want more email opens, product sales and online profits…

__ Do you get to the point right away? Do not tell them about the last four hours you spent watching television or mowing the lawn unless it’s pertinent to the story.

__ Are you telling a story? Ideally you should tell an interesting story in every email you send to increase your open rates.

__ WIIFT… What’s in it for them? Don’t just tell them how great your product is. Tell them what they get for taking the action you’re promoting.

__ “So what?” Read the email as if you were the recipient, and see if they would ask, “So what?” You want to fascinate and excite them to click that link.

__ Is your writing boring? Uh-oh. Not talking about what’s in it for them, or writing “so what” emails are leading causes of massive email boredom.

__ Are you using action verbs? Contrast these two sentences to see the importance of using action verbs: 1. The cat seems healthy. 2. The cat raced across the yard and dove into the bushes chasing the terrified ground squirrel. Which one keeps the reader awake and reading?

__ Is your email just long enough to get them to click the link, and no longer? You’d be surprised how many marketers talk themselves out of getting that link clicked by rambling too much.

__ Is the formatting super easy to read? Or is it all one long indistinguishable paragraph?

__ Have you read it through and cut out all the fat? Seriously. Get to the point. Now.

__ Have you established credibility? Give them a good, honest, believable and credible reason why this is THE product they should buy.

__ Are you using bullet points? If not, are you crazy? Bullet points are your best sales tool in an email or a sales letter.

__ Have you given them a reason to respond right now? Preferably one that doesn’t sound cheesy?

__ Have you included your call to action? Don’t assume they know what to do next.

Use this checklist on your next 5 emails, and compare the results with your last 5 emails. You should see a significant bump in conversions.

Let me ask you a question: Are you on a certain marketer’s email list? You know the one – he sends out an email every day or two telling you to go check out “X” product because it’s new, revolutionary, exciting and the most amazing thing ever? Yeah, that guy. I’m on his list, too.

In fact, I’m on the list of a couple of dozen marketers who fit that description. And the fact is, I seldom open their emails anymore, much less buy their recommendations. And I bet you’re the same way.

So who do you buy from? The marketers you trust, right? Me too.

And here’s who I trust the most: The marketer who actually USES the product they promote to me, and then records a video of them using it, or writes an HONEST review of it.

It’s so simple. It’s so easy. And yet 99% of marketers never do these things.

You want to promote a product to your list. You get the product – maybe you buy it, maybe the product owner gives it to you. You open the product up and consume it. You read the pdf, you watch the videos and you take some notes. Then you implement the strategy and you see what kind of results you get.

Then you write a review telling me about the product. What you like, what you think sucks, what is missing and so forth. You tell me who should buy this (ie: newbies, website owners, etc.) and who shouldn’t. Maybe you record a little video showing either what’s in the product or how you used it or both.

You send me an email with this info. Wow! Talk about doing me a service. Maybe I buy, maybe I don’t, but you have now earned my trust. I open your next email and your next email and the one after that. I read your REAL reviews (notice the word ‘real’) and the more I read, the more I trust you. Pretty soon I’m not buying anything unless YOU recommend it.

Congratulations – you have just risen above 99% of email marketers out there. You have earned my trust and my business and as long as you keep it up, I will continue to buy from your links.

But you know what? 99% of list owners who read this will never do it. They won’t actually USE the products they recommend. They won’t write HONEST reviews. They won’t record videos of the results they’ve achieved through using the product.

And in the long run, they won’t build the audience or make nearly the sales of the few marketers who take the time to do these things.

Here’s a sneaky little underused tactic for making money before you even create your product: Decide what your product is going to be and write an outline for it. From this, create a list of bullet points that presell the product.

Now using these bullet points, offer your upcoming product to your list as a Beta test.

Tell your list:

• The product is being created right now
• They will get the product the moment it’s finished – expected delivery date is ___
• They are getting a killer deal because you want and need their feedback
• They are your beta testers. If it’s software, they will look for bugs. If it is written material, they will let you know about typos, what they think should be added, etc.
• Once you get their feedback, you will fix any bugs, add what’s missing, fix typos, etc. and send them the finalized, polished version.
• You will then offer the product to the public for a significantly higher price than they paid.

Not only does this give you some money up front to work with – it also provides you with valuable feedback you can use to make your product even better than you originally planned. Guaranteed a handful of your beta testers will give you suggestions you never would have thought of by yourself – suggestions that can greatly increase your sales later.

In fact, the feedback aspect alone makes this technique well worth doing. One caution: Do not be tempted to give away your Beta product – 9 out of 10 people you give it away to will never get back to you with feedback because they have nothing invested. When you charge something, even if it’s only a paltry sum, the number of users who give you feedback will greatly increase.

The one exception to the previous rule is people you personally know, like friends and JV partners. Because you already have a relationship with them, they don’t need to financially invest in order to feel vested in your success.

Special bonus for using this technique: Ask your Beta testers for testimonials you can use in your sales material.

Continuity is a fancy term for recurring profits, like a membership site that your customers pay for each month they remain a member. From a marketing standpoint, continuity is awesome because it means a steady income for you.

But from a customer standpoint, continuity can either be a wonderful thing or terrible headache, depending on… YOU, the marketer.

Let’s face it – you would love to have as many paying subscribers to your continuity program as possible, and you would like to keep them as members as long as possible.

But some marketers take this too far. WAY too far. Unscrupulous marketers (which you are NOT) will make it difficult for members to cancel. Worse yet, they will force customers into continuity membership against their will. For example, they’ll hide the fact that the customer will be billed monthly. Because this is illegal, we see less of this technique than we used to, but it’s still out there.

The second thing less than honest marketers will do is offer Product A for $1, and then attach one month’s free membership to Membership B for free. Of course, after the first month then the customer is seeing a charge on their card that they didn’t expect – the charge for Membership B. If they didn’t read the fine print on the sales letter closely, or if they forgot they needed to cancel, they’re going to think they’re being ripped off. And while you can argue it’s legal, it’s not going to earn the marketer any brownie points with the customer. In fact, that customer will likely never do business with them again.

But here’s the question we should be asking these marketers: Why do they find it necessary to hide Membership B behind Product A? If the membership is so great, why not promote that and use Product A as a bonus?

Here’s the lesson we can learn from this: How you treat your customers today will directly affect your income tomorrow. If you try to hide your continuity in any way, your business and your reputation is going to get hurt.

Instead, make Membership B an amazing value, and then brag about it to the moon. Tell customers up front that it’s $1 today and $47 a month after that. Let them know 3-5 days prior to charging them that you will in fact be charging them, and if they want to cancel, here’s how they can do that.

And if you’re worried this will lose you subscribers, let them know they’re going to get a powerful bonus each month, something that will stick them to you like glue.

The subscribers you keep will love you. You won’t have to worry about your name being dragged through the mud on social media. Your customers will TRUST you and want to buy more stuff from you. And affiliates and fellow marketers will WANT to promote you hard and often.

Bottom line: Treat customers like you would want to be treated, and you’ll build a business that will last a lifetime – not just until you get found out.

There are thousands of courses you can buy that will tell you how to make money online. But there is only one method – sell something to someone.

That’s it – that’s the ‘secret’ to making money online.

And once you know the ‘secret,’ it’s just a matter of deciding what you’re going to sell and who you’re going to sell it to.

The easiest way to do that? If you already know the basics of marketing, then probably the easiest method is to turn off your Internet connection and just get busy.

Because building your online business while buying every IM program that comes along is a lot like trying to get across town when you’ve got a hundred people telling you different ways to get there.

“You gotta have the right shoes or you’re not gonna make it – buy these.”

“You better buy our raincoat, it could rain and then you’d be in trouble”

“Dude, use my method and you can avoid the ugly side of town.”

“Take my shuttle bus and it will get you there faster.”

“Go talk to my friend Joe and he’ll fix you right up, only $9.99.”

“You better buy my car because otherwise it will take you forever to get there and besides, it will pay for itself.”

“Forget the car, take my limo and we’ll do the driving for you.”

“Limos are too slow and cumbersome, buy our jet plane. You’re guaranteed to get there fast.”

“That is way too complicated, just ride our camel, he already knows the way.”

“Look, that destination is over saturated and it’s too late to go there. Here’s where you should go instead, and don’t worry – this way works for everyone.”

And so forth.

Pretty soon you’re so confused you don’t know what to do. Meanwhile, the gal who chose her path and ignored the rest has already arrived at her destination. She’s sipping pina coladas and wondering why everyone says it’s so hard to get to where she is. And she’s looking for you… only you’re not there yet.

Get the point? Choose a method, get busy and stay focused until you get there. The rest will take care of itself.