Archive for November, 2005
Monday, November 21st, 2005
When you qualify your AdWords leads, you can reduce the click-through rate (CTR) of browsers and help direct only those most interested in your offer to your site. How is it done? By inserting text that will purposely eliminate arbitrary visitors.
Qualifying Your PPC Leads
Purposely eliminating visitors sounds like an awful thing to do, doesn’t it? Perhaps, until you consider the fact that – once these visitors got to your site and found out the details of your offer – they’d most likely leave anyway.
Why not save yourself a click (and the money associated with that
click!) and prevent the visitor from running up your monthly AdWords bill? This is exactly what Steve Jackson of Conversion Chronicles and I discussed awhile back. Since that discussion, I’ve come up with a process that will allow you to easily write pre-qualifying ads when you use these simple steps.
Step One
Outline the specifications of your offer. Be precise. List all the details of the offer, the price, length of time, physical location, size, etc. For example, say you have luxury cruise packages available. You’d want to list the details such as:
packages depart from New York City and go to several destinations in Mexico including Cozumel, Puerto Vallarta and Mazatl
Posted in Pay Per Click / Paid Placement | No Comments »
Monday, November 21st, 2005
Typically this agreement could run to 40 or 50 pages andcan be a daunting read to those unfamiliar withcommercial contracts. The very nature of a franchisebusiness structure means that the agreement will befairly complex. Remember that this document providesthe framework for your business life over the next sevenyears or so.
Franchisors, particularly established ones, will rarelychange or negotiate the terms of their standardFranchise Agreement as they will want to maintainuniformity across all the franchises. However, it isessential that you understand what you are being askedto sign. Once you have signed an agreement as abusiness person (without the cotton wool treatmentgiven to consumers) you will struggle to persuade a courtlater that the terms were unfair or sufficientlyunreasonable to be void. You will be stuck with it! Istrongly recommend that you seek legal advice from acommercial solicitor familiar with franchising.
Key areas include establishing the true cost of thefranchise including ongoing royalties, advertising costs,minimum stock purchases. What location and territorialrights have been granted? Are these exclusive to you?What property and equipment is required? Whatobligations are there on you and the Franchisor relatingto the ongoing operation of the franchise?
Often the most complex area relates to renewal andtermination of the franchise. Are you granted anautomatic renewal right beyond the franchise term of 5 or7 years? What renewal fee is payable? Can you sell thefranchise on? Usually you will need to give the franchisorfirst option and/or a right of veto over the acceptability ofany proposed transferee, often coupled with a % fee.What are the consequences of an early termination byyou if you want or need to get out prematurely? Therewill usually be a minimum period with forfeiture of thefranchise fee, stock and possibly other financial penaltiesand compensation. What if you are in breach? Whatcircumstances would lead to an automatic termination?Are you given a period in which to remedy your breach?
Ask yourself some “What if?” scenarios. What if you diedor were seriously ill? What if you failed to meet your salestargets? What if you wanted to sell product out of yourterritory? What if a customer sued you for faultyproducts? If you cannot answer all your What ifs, do seekmore advice. Don’t be afraid to ask the Franchisor thesequestions. But don’t expect an impartial response. TheFranchise Agreement will usually have an express termpreventing any reliance upon representations or claimsmade by the Franchisor in the initial presentations ordocumentation. Much to the disappointment of manyclients who come to us for advice having run anunsuccessful franchise, this applies particularly to anyclaims as to how much money can be earnt?? Buyerbeware!
Posted in Advertising | No Comments »
Monday, November 14th, 2005
Why am I laughing? Because every linking campaign I’ve done for the past few years has turned a profit all by itself. That’s right – if search engines didn’t exist, I’d still be counting up the profits from my link-building efforts, while the poor guy with the $3,000/month link-rental bill stares at his search engine ranking reports and wonders if it’s really helping.
I have no doubt that some of those paid links *are* helping folks get their websites better exposure, whether through search engines or otherwise, and I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t submit to directories. However, if you had an opportunity to promote your website and build links without spending as much, wouldn’t you take a look?
The reason I make money on my link-building campaigns is that they aren’t really linking campaigns at all – they’re content-distribution campaigns.
So, what’s a content-distribution campaign and how does it work?
Well, you’re looking at one right now.
Jill is happy to run my article because her readers will enjoy it. Her readers are happy too, because they get useful information. When readers like my article, some will click on the link that appears in my bio, and some of you (I hope) will buy something from me. That’s where my immediate profit comes from – the cost of writing and distributing my articles is far less than the added profit I gain.
In fact, all of the back issues of the High Rankings Advisor are archived online. When this issue goes onto Jill’s website, I get a link, but it doesn’t stop there.
A lot of people will read my article and they will want to send the same information out in their own newsletter or put it on their own website. When they contact me, I will be happy to have them distribute my article and post it on their website. In fact, I might even update it a little and give them a personalized version to use.
It’s a lot easier for me than it used to be because I have a recognized name, but even when nobody knew my name, I made a profit on every article. That includes the very first one I sent out, which generated over $1,500 in sales in one week for my then-new e-book, SEO Fast Start.
So how can you get started? The first step, and it’s very important, is research. You need to find out what kind of information your target audience is interested in. If you’re a mortgage broker, for example, folks might enjoy an article explaining what the heck “escrow” is. I still don’t know, so don’t ask me, but I’m curious and I’d open any email offering to explain it.
You can find good topics and good information on websites like About.com, which conveniently enough shows a list of the most popular articles on each topic. Just pick a topic and search About.com for information – you can use the built-in search, or another search engine like Google (try searching for “mortgage site:about.com” and you’ll see what I mean).
Once you’ve selected some topics, you need to write the articles or pay a professional to do it. Good ezine articles run 500-1,000 words, are written with simple language, and provide clear, useful information. Many professional writers (like our friend Karon Thackston of <http://www.marketingwords.com>) will write articles for you.
My recommendation for those just starting out is to produce no more than 2-3 articles at first. Once you’ve written your articles, it’s time to distribute them. I’d recommend sending out no more than one article per week. You have a few good choices for this:
1) You can distribute them yourself via the “article announcement” mailing lists that many ezine publishers use to find content. Start at Kevin Bidwell’s site, where he provides some great information on a group of announcement lists he manages: < http://www.all-in-one-business.com/groups/>.
2) If you’d rather not do it yourself, you can hire someone to distribute articles to ezines. Phantom Writers <http://www.thephantomwriters.com> can help with this, as can iSnare.com, and others.
3) You can submit to article database websites, such as goarticles.com, ideamarketers.com, isnare.com, valuablecontent.com, and others. You will find a regularly updated list of article databases at <http://www.arcanaweb.com/resources/article-directories.html>.
4) You can use also software like Article Submitter Pro <http://www.articlesubmitterpro.com/> to submit your article to multiple databases at the same time.
In addition to the above methods, a little research will usually uncover dozens if not hundreds of topical websites that carry guest articles. A little trick of mine is to use the “Site Targeted Campaign” tool in my Google AdWords account to find websites that are running Adsense ads related to a topic. These sites are often very hungry for content.
One downside to writing ezine articles is that you can’t always tell your whole story in 1,000 words or less, and this is one of those times. There’s plenty more I’d like to tell you, like how we follow up on our articles to double or triple the number of links, build partnerships, create joint ventures, and more. But I guess that’s an article for another day.
I wish you success.
Posted in Linking and Publicity | No Comments »
Friday, November 11th, 2005
An opt-in list will allow you to keep track of your potential customers by obtaining their email address in order to keep them informed about the latest updates for your product or service. You can create your own opt-in list or you can use an opt-in list creator that is available online from several sources. The benefits of creating your own opt-in list is that you will be able to send personal messages to the potential customers and they will not need to do anything, whereas with commercial opt-in lists, the customer will receive a generated message and will be required to verify their acceptance of the message.
An important part of creating a successful opt-in list is to keep in mind that potential customers will visit your site from many places and may not see your homepage.
Therefore it is imperative to have the ability to subscribe to the mailing list from all pages of your site. You should not, however, make the subscription information a focus point of every page. It is a good idea to put it at the bottom or top of the page where it is visible but not distracting. It is also a good idea to promote your mailing list by using a give-away. You could offer a service, a discount, or an ebook. You can also drive potential subscribers to join your mailing list by writing articles that will benefit the reader and at the same time, build your credibly as an expert. You can include the subscription information in the byline of the articles. You could also write an ebook with your subscription information on each page, which will allow the customer to easily access the information and join the list with ease.
Once you have created the mailing list and now have your potential customers within your grasp it is your responsibility to keep them updated and interested. Provide them with quality information that is up-to-date and of interest to them. Offer discounts or a newsletter, something that the reader can use. This will keep them interested and will drive them to your site over and over, eventually they may make a purchase and if not, they will be informed enough to use word of mouth advertising for your site.
Remember, the Opt-In List is one of a small handful of Internet Marketing tools that really are a must if you are going to have a successful online business.
Posted in List Building | No Comments »
Friday, November 11th, 2005
Before seeking out prospects, having a marketing plan is essential to any business. I’m going to present a lot of research and my objective is to include the need to quantify all the results from all your marketing efforts. And to look at all the strategies for conducting direct marketing campaigns and testing variables to determine the effectiveness of each of the marketing strategies within your business.
Most people want to be successful, but few plan to be. Very few people take the time to plan anything. Most people take more time to plan their vacations than they do to plan their lives. The most important thing you can do right now for your business is sit down and develop a marketing plan. Most business owners fail or they just move along because they don’t have a plan or goal for their business.
I want you to decide right now to make a detailed plan of what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it. It’s the old saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”
You can say, I want to make more money or I want to be rich. That’s nice, but too vague. You want 20,000 sales per month, That’s not a plan nor will it even come close to become a plan.
A plan is a detailed specific road of how you’re going to reach the targets you set out and the date that you want to reach them by. An example is that you can set sales goals. You can sell so many of your products for a week or so many of your services for a week. You should offset these in net profit instead of gross profit because that is the money you’re making.
I know one lady who grosses $9,000,000 a year. Very impressive, She takes home roughly $100,000 of that. That’s not very impressive, It maybe nice to have $100,000 a year, but it’s not impressive when you’re grossing $9,000,000. That won’t really tell you how well you’re doing,
You want to put down the numbers in net profit If you know your net per sale, and most business owners do not even know this, but if you do you’re way ahead of the game. You can work backwards on how many sales you need, Then all you have to do is increase your number of sales per week or net profit per sale.
Develop a strategy for making those numbers, decide how you’re going to advertise. How am I going to get referrals? How am I going to get people to buy more often? How am I going to get people to spend more? This is the beginning of your marketing plan.
Go out and pick five of the best ideas or most comfortable ideas and implement them. Start using them to help you make your goal.
Choose another five, another five, and another five. You want to set your goals on a weekly basis. As you achieve them raise the level the next week. This way you will continue to improve and so will your income.
Don’t panic if you have a bad week. Just get right back on track and try to achieve the next week’s goals. You want to get to know the numbers for your business. It is a business of numbers. You need to know the net profit per sale, net profit per service call, and how much it costs to get your new clients. These are critical in knowing where you are and if you’re achieving your goals.
Take some time each week to plan. It’s critical. Here is a simple guide for you to use.
?
Posted in Advertising | No Comments »
Friday, November 11th, 2005
Since there are so many different uses for autoresponders, they can be of value to virtually any type of business. Some choose to use the autoresponders to answer frequently asked questions about a product or service. Others use them to provide information about pricing and/or your product information. Autoresponders are also a nice way to welcome new members to a website or group as well as thank them after a visit.
One might ask what would be the advantage of using autoresponders as opposed to simply listing the information on the site. An important feature of autoresponders is that they send you an email notification each time a response is sent out. This allows you to track the success of your promotions as well as have the email addresses of potential customers at your fingertips so that you can easily send out updated and new information to them.
It is of the utmost importance to choose an effective autoresponder. An autoresponder should be as personal as possible and send out follow-ups to potential customers since it has been proven that persistence pays off. The average is seven contacts before a final sale is conducted. Generally speaking an advertisement should be short and to the point. However, in this case, the customer has asked to see this specific information and therefore an effective autoresponder should allow you to place as much text on the page as you desire. The autoresponder that you choose should also provide automatic updates to their customers free of charge.
The autoresponder is one Internet marketing tool that will not cost you an arm and a leg. You can get free autoresponders online from several sources. The automatic responses will be a welcome addition to your marketing strategy and will help to automatically increase traffic to your site all while you do nothing after it is set-up. Be sure that the one you choose includes all the extras that will send your site to the top and your profits through the roof.
Posted in Autoresponders | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 9th, 2005
My blood pressure is up and my heart is a-fluttering!! Is it love? No, it
Posted in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) | No Comments »
Friday, November 4th, 2005
by Karon Thackston
Posted in Copywriting | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005
Copyright
Posted in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) | No Comments »
