Archive | September, 2018

When building an email list we tend to think the bigger the list, the better. “How can we increase the conversions on this squeeze page?” is an ultra-common question, and surprising, the WRONG question to be asking. What’s the right question? How about, “How do I build the most RESPONSIVE mailing list?”

Please note: I invite you to test what I’m about to tell you for yourself. In fact, I always invite you to test EVERYTHING I share with you, because that way you’ll know for a fact that it applies in your own unique situation.

And if what I’m about to share stretches the bounds of credibility, it’s all the more reason why you should test, test, test.

To get higher converting opt-ins, let’s first talk about what gets people to sign up for your mailing list in the first place. After that, I’ll reveal the biggest secret I know to getting a HIGH CONVERTING mailing list that will make you more money than many lists twice and three times the size.

What gets people to sign up for your mailing list?

1. Credibility and trust. Have you proven your credibility? Have you won their trust? More to the point, do they trust you, your information, your website, and your offer? If not then they’re probably going to leave without joining your list.

2. Continuity. Whatever brought them to the site – an email, an ad, an endorsement, etc. – must be what they find on the site. If they get an email saying there’s a free video on “Why men lie,” and they get to the website and they’re being offered an ebook on how to get more dates, then you’ve lost continuity, which causes confusion and casts doubt.

3. A great offer, or what we call a no-brainer. This needs to be something of high perceived value to them, something that feeds their need to know and offers them answers they’re looking for.

4. Simplicity. The easier it is to sign up for the freebie and join your list, the more likely they are to do so. Asking for only an email will get you a higher response than asking for email and first name. Every time you add another box to be filled out, you reduce the number of people who will sign-up.

Now here comes the surprising part. Again, test this on your own websites.

I’ve used squeeze pages for years to build mailing lists. I’ve also placed opt-in boxes on content rich websites.

Then I started paying attention to the results and noticed something funny, so I did some split testing.

Not believing the results, I did more split testing. And this is what I discovered:

Using a squeeze page will result in more people joining your list EVERY TIME, compared with skipping the squeeze page and sending your traffic straight to the content rich site with the opt-in box.

BUT – I make MORE money from the lists built from the content rich pages than from the squeeze pages.

That’s right – fewer sign-ups and more money. At first I didn’t understand this, because I just assumed that the squeeze page was capturing the same people the content rich pages captured, plus more.

But obviously it’s NOT the same people, as the split testing bears out. The people who make good customers are the ones who read some of your content, like what they’re reading and want more.

These are the people who will REMEMBER you when you email them. They’re also the ones you’ve already established some credibility with, and because of this they trust you and are more likely to buy from you.

Surprised? I know I was. If you want to test this yourself, be sure to use the same free offer in both cases. Then email both lists for at least two months, and see which one earns you more money.

There is so much misinformation out there on article marketing, I want to try to set the record straight. Granted, some of this misinformation has been repeated so many times that you may be incredulous by what I’m about to tell you. Then again, you might be one of the savvy ones who see through the nonsense of article spinners and the like.

First myth: If you post an article on your website and again on Ezine Articles (or any other article directory) then you’ve got to significantly rewrite it so that’s it’s not duplicate content, right?

Wrong.

So long as it is ORIGINAL content, as in it’s your own content (whether you wrote it or hired someone to write it) you can post the exact same article on your own website and again on the article directories. That’s because Ezine Articles doesn’t care if the article has already been published — as long as it is credited to the original author.

And as far as I know, this holds true for every article directory. If there’s a directory out there demanding unique content, then they don’t know what they’re doing. It would be like asking the Beatles for a unique version of Yellow Submarine before a radio station would play it. It’s just plain crazy.

Second myth: You should publish your article to the ezine directory first, and once it’s accepted then you should publish it to your own website.

Rubbish.

Why would you give your own original content to an article directory before your own website?

If you’re thinking it somehow helps with SEO, it doesn’t. If you’re thinking they won’t take it if it’s already on your website, see above.

You publish it to your own site first to make your site the authority site and to give your site the link juice.

Your main goal in publishing articles to article directories isn’t SEO and it isn’t getting traffic from the directory. It’s to get relevant authority sites to pick up and publish your content, thus giving you valuable backlinks and yes, targeted traffic.

Third myth: “But if other websites are picking up my article, isn’t that duplicate content?”

No. Before the Internet, when the Associated Press would write an article, that article could be picked up by hundreds of different newspapers, with each paper printing the exact same article and byline.

Enter the Internet. Just like the AP, news sites generate content that is then picked up by hundreds of different websites. Each website posts the same identical article with the same byline. It’s called syndication, and it’s perfectly fine. You will NOT be penalized in any way for it, and it can provide valuable backlinks and targeted traffic to your website.

How does Google perceive syndicated content? When a particular article appears on multiple websites, Google perceives it as being POPULAR and adds SEO weight to it, depending on how many instances it discovers. And if it finds your content on high PR and authority sites, it gives it even more weight.

So with those 3 myths officially debunked, stop being held hostage by fake news and get to work on getting your own article content published, circulated and syndicated online!

To double your revenue, we’re going to presuppose that you first of all have revenue from something you’re selling, be it your own products, resale rights products, affiliates, etc.

Let’s say right now you’re selling a $17 ebook and video course. You might be paying for your traffic or getting it in other ways, it doesn’t matter at this point.

Now watch carefully – this is a two step process. Mind you, you could simply do step 1 and ignore step 2 and it will increase your revenue. But we want to DOUBLE your revenue or better, so I highly recommend doing both.

Step 1: Build up your backend. That is, offer upsells and one time offers on all of your deals. This step alone can greatly increase your revenue, and this doesn’t have to be your own products. Go buy resell rights to products related to your $17 deal and offer those.

Now tweak your sales funnel to maximize that backend.

You want it producing as many sales as possible, and simple tweaks can sometimes result in startling increases in your conversion rates.

Step 2: Use some of your increased revenue to purchase more traffic. These days you probably want to avoid Google Ads because they’re heavily into slapping and banning, but there are plenty of other places you can advertise, such as Facebook, Bing, etc.

What’s that? You’ve never paid for advertising and don’t know where to start? Like anything new, there is a learning curve. Spend an hour a day on it and within a year you will be a bonafide expert.
Start out slowly, spending maybe $10 at a time, and work your way up. Remember, because you’ve added an entire backend to your sales system, you are already bringing in a lot more revenue than you were. By leveraging this money into yet MORE traffic, you can make more money still.

Frankly, if you’re already selling anything online consistently, focusing on these 2 simple things (improving your back-end upsell to provide more value for your customers, and expanding your advertising to reach more customers for your product that is already selling) is the only thing you need to focus on to double your income, or possibly more…

You already know that adding bonuses to an offer can increase your sales. But did you also know that the wrong bonuses can actually DECREASE your sales? That’s because it muddles the offer and confuses the customer.

Here’s the 4-part test I use that almost guarantees I choose the right bonuses every time:

1. Does the bonus have a high perceived value? Or a value the prospect cannot determine? Answer yes to either one and it passes the first test. For example: If you’re selling investment advice, then offering a video of insider’s investment tips from the author of the product can have a very high perceived value, while offering an investor’s dictionary (information that can be found with a quick Google search) would have a very low perceived value.

Another example is offering an ebook that currently sells for $97, versus one that sells for $5. Be sure to show them the actual page where you are selling the $97 ebook, and also make sure no one else is selling that same ebook elsewhere for less.

2. Is the bonus unique? Offering a special ebook written by you is unique, so long as you haven’t sold the resale rights. Offering a resale rights product available all over the Internet is not unique. TIP: You can refashion a PLR product into your own unique product – with a unique title and cover – so even though the info is not entirely unique, it does appear as though it is. Is this ethical? I’ll let you decide.

3. Is the bonus relevant to the product being offered? If you’re selling a coffee maker, then a coffee bonus is relevant. Same thing if you’re selling coffee and you give away a free coffee maker (one company made a fortune doing exactly this.)

At a loss as to what to offer? Look at your main offer and then ask, “What’s missing?” It might be a set of instructional videos, or a way to double the effect of the main product. Or perhaps it’s personal coaching, or a webinar to answer questions and help the users get the most out of the product.

4. Is the bonus desirable? The more people want your bonus, the greater the number of prospects who will purchase your offer – sometimes just to get the bonus. For example, if you’re a well-known copywriter, you can offer to polish one of their sales letters as a bonus when they purchase your $997 course on how to write sales copy.

Apply these bonus hacking tips when you create your next product, and you’ll sell more!

Easy Money was a board game introduced by Milton Bradley Company in 1935. The game is based on The Landlord’s Game (as is Monopoly) in the movement of pieces around the board, the use of cards, properties that can be purchased, and houses that can be erected on them.

see more at wikipedia

An easy money policy is a monetary policy that increases the money supply usually by lowering interest rates. It occurs when a country’s central bank decides to allow new cash flows into the banking system. Since interest rates are lower, it is easier for banks and lenders to loan money, thus leading to increased economic growth.

see more at wikipedia

Easy Money is a 1983 American comedy film starring Rodney Dangerfield, Joe Pesci, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Candice Azzara, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. It was directed by James Signorelli and written by Dangerfield, Michael Endler, P. J. O’Rourke and Dennis Blair. The original music score was composed by Laurence Rosenthal. The theme song “Easy Money” is performed by Billy Joel and was featured on his album An Innocent Man.

see more at wikipedia

Easy Money (Swedish: Snabba cash) is a Swedish thriller film directed by Daniel Espinosa that was released on 15 January 2010. It is based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Jens Lapidus. Joel Kinnaman stars in the lead role of Johan “JW” Westlund, a rather poor man living a double life in the upper class areas of Stockholm. After meeting a wealthy girl, he is enticed into the world of organized crime and begins to sell cocaine to afford his expensive lifestyle. Easy Money was well received by critics and was a hit at the box office.
Two sequels to the film have been filmed – the first (Snabba Cash II) was released in 2012, while the third premiered in Swedish cinemas October 2013. Warner Bros. holds the rights to an American remake of Easy Money, which is set to star Zac Efron.

see more at wikipedia

Easy Money II: Hard to Kill (Swedish: Snabba Cash II) is a Swedish thriller film directed by Babak Najafi that was released on 17 August 2012. The film is a sequel to the 2010 film Easy Money, and is based on Jens Lapidus’ books Easy Money and Aldrig fucka upp. It’s the second part in a trilogy, and is followed by Easy Money III: Life Deluxe (2013). The screenplay is written by Peter Birro and Maria Karlsson.

see more at wikipedia

For every big success story I hear about marketing on Facebook, I also hear several stories of, ‘Oh, I tried that, but it didn’t go anywhere so I gave up.” So does marketing on Facebook really work? Without a doubt it does – Facebook is the most visited website in the world, and getting seen can mean a big boost to your list building and your sales.

But the key is to have a game plan for how you’re going to build, brand and market yourself on Facebook. With that in mind, I’ve put together this list of tips to get you moving in the right direction.

1. Create a page. Sounds simple, right? It is – the problem is marketers get confused and they start a profile instead of a page. If you want to market your business on Facebook, a profile simply won’t cut it. Pages are meant for businesses and they are much more effective at getting your message out there.

2. Promote your fan page. First, place your fan page URL in your email signature. Now every time you send an email, it’s another chance for people to find your Facebook page.

Next, blog about your fan page. Don’t just ask your blog readers to like your page – instead, give them at least one compelling reason why they should (bribes work well, but it could be any reason, so long as it resonates with your readers.

Now, add a “Like” box to your blog or websites. Get the plugin code for the Facebook Like box. Place this code on your website’s or blog’s sidebar. You can get more details and the plugin code here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/page-plugin/

3. Cross promote your page. By posting on other fan pages using your page’s user name, you get a visible link to your page with each comment.

4. Consider getting some Facebook ads. It’s easy, you can spend as little as you like, and you can target your campaigns to only those people who are likely to be interested in what you have to offer.

5. Promote your page on Twitter. First, place your fan page URL on your Twitter profile background. (Note: Only those using the web based version of Twitter will see your background, but this can still be plenty of eyeballs.)

Second, Tweet about your page. Ask your Twitter followers to like your fan page. Again, offering them a good reason why they should like it will increase your response rate.

6. Why should people become fans? We’ve touched on this, but it’s important: Give people a great reason to become your fan. Maybe it’s to get discounts or updates. Maybe it’s a free video, ebook, etc. Just make sure it’s something that motivates immediate and swift action.

7. Add your page URL to YouTube. Do you create videos to promote your business? Then by all means add your fanpage URL link to your videos, either at the end of the video or at the beginning of the video description.

8. Post frequently. If you forget about your fanpage, your fans will forget about you. Post once or twice a day with good info, updates and questions. Don’t make it all about you and your products. Instead, post about events, news, your industry and so forth. And whenever you can, inject a little humor into the mix.

9. Ask your fans to like your content so it gets shared on their walls. You can’t ask every time, but now and then is fine. When they like your post, more people will see it, which can lead to more fans – always a good thing.

10. Speaking of questions: Get your fans involved with your page by starting discussions about your products and services or industry news. What’s the best way to start a discussion? Simply ask a provocative question your fans cannot ignore. If you get stuck on what to ask, use the fill in the blank kind of question, such as, “If you could have any job in the world, it would be ____.”

11. Do not become a troll victim. Now that you’re starting discussions, remember to remain professional at ALL TIMES, with no exceptions. If you are perceived as quarreling with a fan, it won’t matter if you’re right – it will only matter that you lost your cool and you look like a real dope. And if things look like they may get nasty, offer the fan a private way to contact you (phone or email, for example.)

12. Forget the “I” and focus on the “we.” Much like writing a sales letter, making Facebook posts should be all about “we,” not I. For example, “We reached 500 likes today, thank you everyone!”

13. Remember to use plenty of photos and even videos. Written words are great, but videos are better and photos tend to get shared. So incorporate a variety of mediums into your Facebook communications.

14. Be thankful. This one takes a little time, but it’s well worth it. Thank each new person who likes your Facebook page. This will really make you stand apart from the crowd. After all, how many people have ever personally thanked them for a Like? You might very well be the first.

15. Relax. Facebook is not the place for a suit and tie kind of personality. Instead, be fun, be casual, be funny and make your fanpage an entertaining, inviting place to be.

16. Brand your page. That large image on your timeline needs to ROCK. It should effectively communicate the message you want to send to your fans, so spend some time getting it just right. (Size it as close to 850 x 315 pixels as possible for best viewing.)

17. Keep track. Use Facebook insights to discover when people are most engaged with your content. This way you know when to post to get the maximum effect. https://www.facebook.com/help/search/?q=insights

18. Encourage people to return. Facebook Offer Ads allow you to offer special incentives when people visit your page. Create new and compelling special offers regularly and let your followers know about it, and you’ll get many more repeat visitors. https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1446432849003728

19. Keep it short and sweet. Want to capture the most eyeballs? Keep your posts to 80 characters or less. Longer posts tend to be skimmed, and shorter ones tend to get read.

20. Pin your posts. I’m not talking about Pinterest here. Rather, Facebook allows you to “pin” a post to the top of your timeline. Use this to showcase something important, such as an upcoming event or a dynamite testimonial from a celeb in your niche.

Them more important tip of all: Get to work. None of this will help if you don’t get busy and use it to promote your business on Facebook!