Internet Marketing Magazine June 2012 by Internet Marketing Magazine

JUNE 2012

JOIN US ON FACEBOOK

TEST YOUR ONLINE ADVERTISING >

PAGE 14

TOOLS TO CREATE AWESOME CONTENT

THE AVENGERS IN YOUR BUSINESS

PAGE 32

PAGE 17

TRUST SEALS

> TOP

10 EMAIL MARKETING TOOLS

PAGE 34

PAGE 19

JAMES SCHRAMKO

MOBILE MARKETING >

PAGE 24

SYSTEMIZATION FOR MILLIONS

>> THE ORIGINAL AND BEST INTERNET MARKETING MAGAZINE DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR THE IPAD, IPHONE, ANDROID AND THE WEB

EBOOKS VS PHYSICAL BOOKS PAGE 28

INTERNET UPDATE

THE STATE OF THE INTERNET Google Killing Off Google Website Opti- All in all this change to the new ‘Content Experiments’ may be a good move for the beginner to mizer Google Website Optimizer is a free tool used by many marketers to increase the conversions on their website. Google is in the process of shutting it down and merging it into Google Analytics and is calling it ‘Content Experiments’

intermediate marketers who don’t currently do any testing or only use A/B testing. Serious marketers who do a lot of multi-variate testing may be looking for a new testing tool.

Bing to Launch New Social Search Microsoft introduced a new version of the search engine with a three-column design combining traditional Web search and social. The product is rolling out in the U.S as of early June with other countries to follow.

Introducing Content Experiments

A sidebar titled “Friends Who Might Know” connects searchers to friends on social sites who may have insight into specific search queries. If a friend “liked” an Italian restaurant and posted photos from a recent trip to New York, they can be served up in related searches that you do for similar information.

Website Optimizer will be going away on August 1. The verdict is still out on whether or not the migration into one tool will be an improvement. “Content Experiments is a somewhat different approach from either standard A/B or multivariate testing,” Google says in a help center article. “Content Experiments is more A/B/N. You’re not testing just two versions of a page as in A/B testing, and you’re not testing various combinations of components on a single page as in multivariate testing. Instead, you are testing up to five full versions of a single page, each delivered to visitors from a separate URL.” In a really weird move from Google - Google will not offer a migration option for Google Website Optimizer users, so if you have tests running you can run them up to August and then you will have to recreate the tests on the new Content Experiments.

internet marketing magazine june 2012

Bing Social Search

Derrick Connell, corporate VP of search program management, said the right rail paid-search ads will remain in place and should perform slightly better. In the future, Microsoft will “start to experiment with new ad formats and models.”

Facebook Helping Out in the Anti-Virus top free iPhone app on the App Store in the last month — with much of that growth emanating from Business… its new Facebook Timeline app.

If you’ve been infected by a dirty little virus called DNSChanger, you won’t be able to access the Internet after July 9th. Even though the people behind the virus have been arrested, there might be millions of computers still infected.

Viddy, which celebrated its first birthday on April 11th, enables users to shoot, customize, and share 15-second video clips directly from their mobile devices. Its video creation platform allows users to choose from custom video overlays and audio effects from their favorite musicians, movies, and celebrities, and share their short video clips across across social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

DNSChanger was operated as a botnet, which infected computers, switched up search results, altered ads and redirected those affected to malicious sites. This is achieved by manipulating your DNS settings and swapping them over to a service Today, Viddy’s community is 8 million-strong, acoperated by those who were arrested. cording to Viddy Co-Founder and CEO Brett OBrien, Facebook is now able to notify users likely infected and the app has seen a significant bump in growth with DNSChanger malware and direct them to in- since launching its Facebook Timeline app in Februstructions on how to clean their computer or net- ary. works.

If you’ve unknowingly been infected with DN- SEO and Pausing PPC Ads Traffic SChanger, here’s a popup that you’ll see when you What happens if you turn off your Google Adwords log into Facebook: Ad? Will this traffic be replaced by your organic SEO listings if you are ranking well? A recent meta-study of 400+ Search Ads Pause studies, shows what happens when advertisers pause their search ad campaigns. This video explains the methodology and walks through results that show paid search traffic is incremental to organic search traffic.

Facebook Anti Virus Message

The Instagram of Video? With the skyrocketing popularity and billion-dollar sale of Instagram, there’s an ongoing race to apply Instagram’s wildly successful photo sharing model to mobile video. There are a number of startups vying to claim the ‘Instagram for Video’ title, with Socialcam, Viddy, Klip, Mobli, and even the infamous Color all in the running. Viddy may now be the one to beat, as the social video sharing app became the

Search Ads Pause

internet marketing magazine june 2012

From the Desk of the Editor

We’re trying to build the number of reviews we Last month was a great month for Internet Mar- have on the Apple platforms so as to keep domiketing Magazine with the Internet Retail expertise nant rankings in the search. If you are getting good of Paul Greenberg a real highlight. Our strategic value from Internet Marketing Magazine I’d really partners at Kampyle provided us a copy of their appreciate it if you could spare 1 minute of your online feedback tool for our InternetMarketingMag. time and click this link to give us a quick honest net site and we received feedback about the Paul review (click ‘view in iTunes’ then scroll down and Greenberg interview via that new communication click ‘write a review’, thanks :). channel in the last month also. Until next time… Wishing you the best of success This month you will now find the new full ‘System- online izing Your Way to Millions’ James Schramko Interview audio in the ‘Audio Expert Interview’ section of the member’s area. James is an incredible entrepreneur who has taken his learnings from traditional offline business and applied it to the online arena with great success. It’s free, so if you haven’t Greg Cassar been sent your link to the member’s area please Internet Marketing Strategist feel free to register for it today at http://internet- & Editor – Internet Marketing Magazine marketingmag.net/become-member/

GregCassar

internet marketing magazine june 2012

EXPERT INTERVIEW

SYSTEMIZATION FOR MILLIONS An Interview by Internet Marketing Strategist Greg Cassar

James Schramko is an Australian Internet Marketing success story. After learning traditional small, medium and large business, James started marking online in 2005 and has gone on to generate several million dollars worth of profit. James has mastered many aspects of Internet business including affiliate marketing, SEO, local business marketing, traffic techniques and information product marketing - just to name a few. In 2011 James did over one million dollars in profit online. Greg: James, prior to getting into Internet marketing, you were very successful in what we would consider the more traditional business arena, and in particular with the management of Mercedes Benz dealerships. What would you say are key business or sales learnings that you’ve been able to take from those traditional business environments and apply to the online business environment?

gurus at the time, then trying to find blogs and understand business models, and I think we all get sucked in a little bit by the promise of easy riches - it was so appealing and so exciting and thrilling to think that I’d be able to tap into that.

James: I think the real fundamental things about business transferred across for me - which was management, leadership, selling, marketing, having an awareness of brand values and a really good fundamental understanding of the different channels between wholesale and retail - and being able to understand the numbers of costs, profits and projections. These things have been vital in growing my own business online. I was able to reJames Schramko Dealership Days produce a lot of the same things that I had in a real business, but just use a different channel - But it was devastatingly difficult in the beginning. and obviously different products and services. But And progressively over the years I started rolling a lot of the things are exactly the same. back in things that I knew from business until I’ve ended up where I am today - and we’re roughly Greg: When you approached Internet market- seven years down the track. Now my business is ing did you approach it with a proper business very similar to the last job that I had, with a few owner mindset right from the word go or more notable exceptions, and one main one being that of a hobby mindset as many people do? it’s my business, and rather than be the employee in the business, I am the owner and I am creating James: I think I did fall into the trap of approach- an asset. ing it from the hobbyist mindset in the beginning, because I was by day running this large dealer- Greg: It’s interesting you talking about the early ship in an office with lots of staff, and by night I days online. You have obviously had a lot of sucwas there in my tracksuit pants at my computer, cess online now. Can you remember when you by myself with no staff, no leverage whatsoever, got the bug and knew that this was what you trying to learn from MP3 recordings of American wanted to do? internet marketing magazine june 2012

James : I definitely got the bug before I was successful at it, otherwise I don’t think I would have reached success. I really had to believe that it was possible and I worked just on the pure logic of “If other people are able to do this, surely it’s something that can be learned, or understood”.

industries that adapted the Internet marketing as a way of doing business, and I just got that inkling – “well this is so open, it’s wide open and it’s only early days”. I didn’t know what I would sell or what I would market. I just knew the channel was the Internet and I knew that I had sales and marketing ability, but I really didn’t know what. So I started blogging with a blogger blog. I started doing a few other bits and pieces. But it was when I struggled to build a website that I really had a breakthrough, because after trying to do it so many different ways I ended up buying some software that help me create the website, and that finally got me online.

It took way longer than I thought. Some of the key things were seeing John Reese’s million dollar day, which I think was around about 2005. That was like three times my annual salary and the guy did it in 16 hours. I thought that was inspirational. I didn’t realise the truth until later that you had to pay half of that to affiliates and then a third of them will refund, then you get left with a fraction of it and you had to work your butt off for years prior to it, and then many months after it. So, they don’t tell you So the first thing I did was create a website that was that stuff when they’re telling you the big stats - but a case study for the website software, so that I could the idea of it caught my imagination. understand all the features - and it’s like a test site. And then I made another site that talked about my journey through struggling to be able to build a website, to actually being able to build one, and I put an affiliate link for the software. So my first real success was convincing someone else who was struggling, just like I was, that this software would help them build a website, and they’d purchase it through my link and I made a sale. I really made the tough sales in the beginning and then it escalated from like three to five to ten to 15, to 20, to 50, to 100 sales a month. I actually rode that out for years. The experience that I had when I went online looking for a Jay Abraham book caught my imagination. I found the free report. They gave me these really valuable PDF reports for free and all they asked me for was my email address and my name. But then I got turned into a sales person for that product, through the process; they indoctrinated me into becoming an affiliate. That’s when I started trying to put up a little web page on my new hosting. I was able to put my affiliate link on there. Of course I made no sales and I had no one come to the site and it looked terrible, but just that concept of wow, I probably should learn how to build a website because this could be big. My family were in the travel industry at the time and I could see that they were losing sales to people buying tickets online, and travel was one of the earliest

internet marketing magazine june 2012

Greg: One thing I really like about you is that you are an amazing systems guy, and I know you’ve created massive leverage with your businesses by building a big, and now very systemised in-house team. What do you think you were doing different in that space, compared to others who have not really achieved that level of systemisation, or automation in their business? James : One thing we really try and do is have the least amount of systems and the simplest possible system. So that sounds counter-intuitive, but less really is more. And I take inspiration from the Russian satellite Sputnik, which beat the Americans in the space race. It was very, very simple but it worked. And that’s what our systems have to be. We want the least amount of moving parts so that it’s reliable and that it can be. We want the least amount of moving

parts so that it’s reliable and that it can be easily taught to new people. So the core foundation for our business is that we have standard operating procedures for every role. That way we can interchange people from one role to another and when we hire and scale we can bring someone in and they can quickly learn the system because it’s documented.

probably better than most is we are pretty good with our projections. We work out how many jobs we’re doing, how long they take to do, how long the average person can actually work then we can therefore magically arrive at the number of people we need in that department. And then we can factor in growth - if we’re going to increase our sales 20 percent, how many more jobs is that? How many more hours is that? How

people wouldn’t know what you mean by it. Could you please explain what you mean by wealthification?

James: I sort of coined this phrase ‘wealthification’ as the process of creating wealth through having a business. So you get your business working and performing for you and you’re building up cash flow and assets. Most assets are easy So documenting the steps for evto recognise, like the sale value of erything that the domain, or the we do is probbusiness, but also ably one of the other assets the best things like authority and that we’ve list equity. And done, that they sound kind of most people funky but that is don’t do. And the intangible asif you go and sets that actually speak to alhelp you with conmost any busiversions and marness owner ket reputation, they would and the ability to tell you, get better joint “Yeah, I know, venture partners I should write and the ability to that down”, hire and attract or “I should amazing people create a sysinto your business. tem for it, I So, wealthificajust haven’t tion is really just had time setting up the sysyet.” But really, that’s the thing many more people do we need in tems and the structure and having that frees you up. Having system that area of the business, and we the right strategy and the right and structure actually gets much can actually start hiring before people in place to have your busimore performance from you than we need the person, so that we’re ness working well, as much as it not having it. And I think of it like not stretched or right on the lim- can without you. train tracks for a locomotive. If it, which again is a pretty comyou can have some reliable train mon failure point for businesses One of my goals is to make myself tracks laid down you can put that in that they just get out of control redundant in the business as much powerful engine on it and it can so quickly. as possible so that it’s still working go back and forth reliably forever. even if I’m not. It should be able If you don’t have train tracks and Greg: There is a key business to operate without me for periods it’s just left to go in the desert, concepts I learned from you of a time, and then my involvewho knows where it’s going to end called “Wealthification”. Some ment is really sort of optional, or up. people who are around your to take it to the next stage, or to community definitely would enhance it in some way. And that’s And the other thing that we do have heard of that, but a lot of basically what I did. I started dointernet marketing magazine june 2012

cumenting all of the things that most business owners tend to overlook, or don’t ever get around to.

James: ‘Chocolate wheel’ is like those big game show wheels that they spin, and you end up winning a prize. I like to think of my business like a big circle like that, like a wheel, and I put my customer in the middle of that circle.

Greg: I know you’ve travelled a lot all over the globe with either attending, or speaking at events and holidays etc, is that how you’ve been able to do it by these systems and procedures to make I first connected with this idea way back when I was the system to be able to run without you there with Mercedes Benz, I did some management trainfor sometimes weeks on end? ing and one of the assignments was, to do a project that would help the dealership. And the concept James: Exactly, because my business is virtual - that I came up with was called “One Customer”. Pretty much all of my business exists in the cloud. What I had realised was that, our dealership had People are working from home. All of our assets are all these little systems and departments; there was online; stored in electrons. You can’t see or touch the service department, the sales department, the our services, we just do stuff and then there’s an parts department, the finance department, the adend result, like a website, or a search engine opti- min department, and they all had their own little misation - you know someone’s site will rank better profit silos and they’re all guarding each other’s custhan it used to rank. So you can see the end re- tomer - but then I said, “But guys, you’ve got the sult but it’s all-virtual - there’s no factory as such, same customer. You actually have one customer.” there’s no physical box of bits. We don’t have any physical goods anymore in our business. And that’s the same with my business. I have one customer in the middle of the business and they So that’s what really stretches your brain I think, deal with the different parts of my business - hence to work out how to best organise it. So you start the wheel, but they can move around my chocolate thinking about, how do we manage our emails bet- wheel and never have to leave my business. They ter? How do we manage our digital assets better? can buy a website, then they can buy a search enWhere do we put them? How do we move them from gine optimisation to improve the positioning, or the one person to another? What sort of process should promotion of that website, then they might buy inwe work on with? Where do we centralise our data- formation products that enhance their understandbase? How do we centralise our affiliate army? How ing of how to leverage their business and then they do we set up our cart so that we can take payments, might buy some coaching to have me help them to send payments? And basically organising all of these build their business faster. So they didn’t actually things into a structure that can continue to work have to leave my business. when you’re not there. That’s when you start to get into your sequential auto responder messages. You have triggers for things that happen in your support desk. If you don’t hear from a customer for seven days it should send you a note saying - should send the customer a note saying, “Hey Greg. Are you still there? We’re just checking up on you”. So you can automate a lot of these things and systemise them so that once you put people into the system and they’re trained well then they sort of pick it up and start running it. Greg: I know you’ve got a very customer-centric model and you’ve coined this term, called “The Chocolate Wheel”. Can you please identify some of the key components of this modular type chocolate wheel approach?

internet marketing magazine june 2012

James Schramko’s many products and services

So there are these different elements and services and products that I provide but I have the same customer. And I can have a useful conversation with that customer and very, very low pressure recom-

mendations between the different areas. But each one of those slices of the wheel could be sold off as an individual asset and they stand alone. So you’ve still got that Parthenon theory that Jay Abraham talks about where the business stands alone, like legs on a table. I’ve got five or six legs on my table that prop up my business, so it’s still very profitable. It’s very protected against losing the whole part of the business.

So, the real key to the chocolate wheel is the lifetime customer model. So if you can surround yourself with products and services that can be repeatedly consumed then that really enhances the business.

Greg: You’ve got a lot of different strings to your bow when it comes to traffic generation. Do you have some preferred traffic methods that you always start with when you’re doing a new busiLet’s say, Google falls out of favour; makes radi- ness or niche and then expand into less effective cal changes and suddenly Bing is more popular, or things over time? Facebook is the only platform that people want to promote on. I might lose my SEO leg of the table, James: I do. And I mean I learnt so much about but I’ve still got websites, I’ve still got software, traffic because when I was being a super affiliate, I’ve still got information products, I’ve still got which was about half my business four years ago, affiliate marketing. So you can still have a strong I found offers that would convert so my immedibusiness with stand alone pieces, but when they ate requirement was to go and find as many places slide together, that’s when it becomes powerful, that I could put this offer - and that’s why I tried all because the same customer can buy five, or six dif- these different traffic sources. ferent things from you and you get five or six times the profit. And that’s where you go from hundreds A lot of people only have one traffic trick, and I of thousand, to millions, just by looking after that think that’s a mistake as one is a dangerous number. lifetime customer. So I tried all the different traffic things and I found some that I like. Number one is my own customSo that’s one of the main things that I learned from er list, and having just talked about the chocolate Mercedes Benz, is that my Mercedes Benz customer wheel that should be no surprise. I’ve built up cuswill continue to buy Mercedes Benz until I give them tomer list equity. They trust me. They will look to reason not to. And they’re loyal, brand loyal cus- my recommendations and that’s why - if someone tomers who want to continue to enjoy that product only had one product or service they could immediof service. Where so many car sales people have ately make it a chocolate wheel by adding affiliated that, ‘stick it to the customer approach’. They get recommendations. As the second product or service the customer once and they never see them again. that they want to do - just find things that your cusBut in my case I like the same customer over and tomer consumes and recommend them. over again, because the lifetime value of that customer is worth a fortune compared to trying to mar- But in the traffic side of things, my standard operatket and one-time customers over and over again. ing procedure is, make really good content, especially now. That is more important than ever before. So I am doing videos every day. I put out a video, We then convert that into audio and put it on to our iTunes channel so we’ve piggy-backed our main The same customer can buy business website as a podcast. But I’m now putting five, or six different things it on my website, which will get some Google love. from you and you get five or I’m putting it on YouTube so it’s getting that video traffic pickup. As a result of putting it on iTunes, I six times the profit. And that’s can go out to people’s portable devices. So that’s where you go from hundreds the first stage.

“

of thousands, to millions, just by looking after that lifetime customer.

The next phase is we’ll then announce it on Facebook, because with Facebook I’m reaching over one million people through my friends and fan pages, internet marketing magazine june 2012

through Organic, and then we may actually follow that up with a paid campaign if it’s a feature piece. Now I’m not going to do the paid advertising every day but I might pick the best one for the week, or the best one for the month and really hit that hard, because there is a name-catcher device on my website, which leads to my list, which of course is my number one. I broadcast my list and tell them about the new content, and that’s by channel, so if they’re interested in website stuff they get the website news update. If they want all the updates they’ll probably get one every day. We also do a press release every single day on our blog content. And that will pick up relevant traffic. It also helps search engine results and it gets us the occasional interview, or media exposure, which then gets me in front of new people. The next step is I would announce it to my community. So I will embed the content into my forums. I’ve got three separate forums, so I put it into the most relevant one for whatever the item is. Greg: The other thing I really like about it is, you’re becoming the media and not always dependent on going out and buying the media. All traffic has a cost, whether it’s either time or money, but definitely the content syndication model works great. I know you work with business owners and entrepreneurs of all different skill levels from experienced or high-end Internet business people through to what we call ‘Internet newcomers’. You must see some exceed and also some that don’t. Have you

internet marketing magazine june 2012

given any thoughts to - what are the traits or habits that are in common for those who succeed online versus those who don’t? James: I’d say my most successful students are implementers. They will rapidly implement. They literally say “This is my challenge” and I will help them discover the answer. And by that I don’t mean that I’ll always just tell them the answer. I might tell them what the questions are that they need to answer so at to really refine their thoughts. Then they implement and that’s where they get traction.

of what needs to be done and they’re not open to getting learning outcomes and adjusting. So you have to be able to pivot quickly. There’s a lot of great information in a book called, ‘The Lean Startup’. It will help the average business owner understand about this. But if people pursue the wrong niche and they’re too slow to recognise that and they don’t change then they go extinct. So the most dangerous things that I hear from people are, “I’ve got this great idea.” Or, “This is what I want to do because I think it’s a good idea.” Great, but are people actually buying it? Is there a hungry crowd. If you’ve got the hungry crowd you really can’t go wrong.

That implementation will cause a result. The result might be positive or negative but they get a result and then they can adjust and then make another implementation. So we’re talking about these ‘build, measure, learn’ loops - they’re implementing and they’re getting learning outcomes and that guides their next decision. So the people who have faster implementation cycles, are getting faster results. The people who have less discipline, or the Greg: I was particularly imless capacity to implement, do pressed last week when you nothing, and get nothing. talked me through your ‘Fast Web Formula’ environment. Greg: What about on the niche For those who haven’t experiside? I see definitely with In- enced Fast Web Formula, would ternet marketing - nailing the you mind explaining a little bit niche is so important because about what it is and also how they can be doing everything people can find it - and, as well, right, but if its not that sort of you online? starving hungry crowd who really actively want what it is that James: When I was going really you’re selling then you can do well with my affiliate marketing everything right, but if you’re selling software and then started missing that one piece then it selling local business services, can all come to nought. I really did have a fast runner. I quickly went from a hundred James: Yes that’s because some thousand dollars a year, to a milpeople are too rigid on their idea lion dollars a year. And people

James Schramko’s Fast Web Formula

just kept asking me about it. “How? How did you do this? What’s the secret?” So I started holding events to teach people and that opened up my information marketing division. I ended up running about seven events of a reasonable size and I recorded most of them. And what I did is actually put all of the recordings of that into an online community, so that I had one central place now. You can just watch the recordings. But you don’t have to watch them all. You just have to watch the ones that are going to get you the result you need to get today, or this week.

ronment with a click of a button. In an hour from now you can have world-class copywriting ideas running around in your mind. If you want to back that up with another world-class copywriter then you’ll watch the Alexi Neocleous one. And so then two hours later you’ve got a really rich copywriting journey that you’ve got in this one place and the best thing about it is if you want to ask some more questions you just go below the video and you have this forum discussion – “in the video Alexi mentioned this - what do you do on your site?”. I go in and answer these questions every day.

So, already within the first month there’s been four If you want to boost the copywriting on your site and a half thousand posts in this community and you go and watch John Carlton speaking about there’s almost 300 members. And the interesting copywriting; one of the world’s best copywriters, thing is that more than half the members are interhe’s speaking about it for an hour straight on my mediate or advanced. So, the good news for a new stage. You can just transport yourself to that envi- person is, if they want to get good you go and train internet marketing magazine june 2012

with the guys that are really good. If you wanted to be a body builder you’d go down to Golds Gym in LA, or wherever it is, and find all the hulks and say well what do you - what protein do you eat, what weights do you lift. They’ll get you bigger than if you’re going to try and learn at the free gym in the YMCA; some country town. So that’s what I did. I put everything in one place and I made it like this melting pot of brains and information. It’s a really good community of people who are kicking butt. By getting access to the right stuff you can very quickly get pointed in the right direction.

questions. So, so far it’s been richly rewarding, and probably posted nearly 20 thousand posts in other forums up until now, so I’ve got a lot of experience about managing and working with communities. I do think there is a payoff for spending so much time with my best customers, I keep my customers, and I’m able to help them and see dramatic change for their business. That’s very exciting to me.

Greg: I encourage all Internet Marketing Magazine readers to visit FastWebFormula.com and experience the amazing environment that James has created there. A big thanks goes out to James SchAnd we also add to that with live training each ramko and the amazing overview he’s provided in month. We do a live webinar where we go through systemisation for serious profit. a topic and then we can do Q&A and just answer

internet marketing magazine june 2012

MAKE 2012 YOUR YEAR FOR ONLINE RETAIL SUCCESS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AUSTRALIA FREE

YOUR WITH PASS EXPO

CAROL STEINBERG

EVP of Internet, Marketing and Human Resources, ShopNBC.com

SUCHARITA MALPURU

Vice-President and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

FREE

YOUR WITH PASS EXPO

AMY AFRICA

Internet Sales Guru, Eightbyeight.com

CAM BALZER

ALLAN DICK

CMO, Threadless.com

EVP of Merchandising, Vintage Tub and Bath

PLUS MANY MORE WORLD-CLASS SPEAKERS At Online Retailer Conference and E-commerce Expo you will connect with the industryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most influential e-commerce professionals as they share insights, tactics and practical advice for online retail success. Through four days of top quality learning, strategic networking and an exciting showcase of technology innovation, you will build your business and increase your profits.

LEARN MORE & REGISTER AT ONLINERETAILER.COM Platinum Sponsors

EARLY BIRD DEALS EXPIRE JUNE 15 MAIN CONFERENCE PASS PAY ONLY $1,045 SAVE $420

4-DAY EVENT PASS

PAY ONLY $1,780 SAVE $420 EXPO PASS - FREE

Gold Sponsors

internet marketing magazine june 2012

ONLINE ADVERTISING

ALWAYS TEST YOUR ONLINE ADVERTISING By Armand Morin I believe there is a grand change going on in online advertising.

how to run my business which is what Google has been doing.

Whether you know it or not, whether you want to admit it or not, or whether you want to hide behind a rock and forget about it, it’s changed dramatically.

With Bing and Yahoo, there’s still opportunity there, but the problem is getting enough clicks. It’s more difficult to get clicks on Bing and Yahoo than it has been on Google.

We do things now that we’ve never done before. We are very critical of our email and its delivery and the reason is because email is getting blocked faster than it ever has been in history.

In our company, we are always testing and tweaking ways to break through advertising barriers in order to get more traffic for whatever it is we may be doing, but it’s a lot of work so what you want to focus on is outside advertising sources.

We’re still doing fine with ours, we have a great delivery rate thanks to several services like EmailDelivered.com, which is owned by Heather Seitz. They help us get our emails through and keep us white listed. But direct email is only one marketing source. Another is advertising. Typically people only use the big three — Google, Yahoo or Bing. That’s just not going to cut it anymore. The reasons vary…

What I mean by outside advertising sources is ad networks and there are a ton of them out there. I keep what I call my secret bookmark list, which is simply a list of bookmarks that I add to every day. I find new places to advertise as I surf the Internet. If I see someone serving an ad and I want to find out where the ad is coming from and see if I can advertise there, I bookmark that and test it repeatedly.

Google itself is dangerous for anybody right now. Someone asked me not too long ago, what’s the best way to advertise on Google and I said don’t do it. They asked me why and I told them, because they’re too volatile. I don’t want to put a lot of time and effort into something just to know that I’m ultimately going to get banned. Sure, I could tell you the ways to get yourself approved and stay clean on Google, but it’s a lot of work and there’s always that risk. I hate the idea of having to look over my shoulder to see whether I’m doing it right or not. You’re an advertiser, and I want to buy space with you, take my money and let me advertise but don’t tell me

internet marketing magazine june 2012

The Current Advertising Ecosystem - Image credits Luma Partners

Driving traffic is actually easier on these ad networks because you simply buy space, pay the money and they send you traffic.

tising and marketing goes, so you just don’t know where to go for advertising, so your choices are limited.

Do this right now... go to Google and type in the words ‘ad network’. You’ll find a day’s worth of work that you could do finding various places in which to advertise.

Whereas, I know where not to go which rules out a lot of places. I know where I should be looking and that opens up a world of choices to me.

Targeted Traffic

I look everywhere I go, whether it’s new sites, a social network of some sort or whatever. If I see they’re using a different form of advertising, then I’ll backtrack to find out where the ads are coming from, pull up the site to see what it looks like and whether it’s possible for me to advertise there, as well. This gives me a huge range of advertising sources, which in turn means choices. When you have a plethora of places where you can advertise, it gives you the advantage of having multiple sources of traffic, and that’s a huge advantage. One of the biggest differences between a person beginning in the world of Internet marketing and one that’s been around for a while is that, as veterans we know how to limit and direct our choices in a very positive way. You may be new as far as adver-

• I want to see where they are located geographically. • I want to know everything, and I don’t want to risk a lot of money in the process.

So when you’re trying out new advertising sources, don’t blow everything you’ve got in the first couple of days testing out 20-30 different elements. You want to The more choices you have when limit the amount of money you it comes to advertising, the bet- spend and therefore, you limit ter position you’re actually in, so your liability. start looking at alternative sources of advertising. You may have money to spend, but that doesn’t mean you have Know that I’ll try anything once, to spend it all testing. Test safely especially if it doesn’t cost me a and then spend more money on lot of money. the sources that deliver the best results. I placed an ad on an ad network that started recently. I was mess- A lot of people have what I call ing around with it just to see what the Ricky Bobby syndrome, which would happen. I threw a product means they want to go fast. up there, set up the campaign Sometimes fast isn’t good beand monitored it. cause that allows you to make mistakes that you wouldn’t have I’m not talking about huge results made if you had gone slower and because I always limit my cam- taken your time. paigns, meaning I’ll put a $5 or $10 limit per day when I start out. Limit your budget and find a I don’t spend hundreds of dollars source that’s working, then into test an ad source. I’ll usually crease your budget a little at a test a system with whatever their time. As your results increase, inminimum requirement is. crease your budget and advertise your business so that you maxiWhen I test, I am looking at some mize your return on investment. very specific things. Armand Morin • I want to see the quality of is a self-made multitraffic. millionaire author and • I want to see if I can generate best-selling recording artist. He is one of a sale. • I want to see if I can generate the most well known Internet Marketers an opt-in. in the world today. • I want to see what kinds of Having started online in 1996, his personal people are coming. businesses alone have generated over $80 • I want to see where they are million in revenue. Armand is known for revealing his latest epiphanies, his wildly coming from. successful no-nonsense strategies, and his • I want to see what the demo- proven marketing models. http://www. graphics of those people are. armandmorin.com/ internet marketing magazine june 2012

Feedback Management

Listen. Engage. Convert. Increase your ROI by collecting, analyzing and leveraging customer feedback data for: Generating qualified leads & closing more sales Optimizing site conversion rates Reducing live support costs Enhancing the customer experience Increasing customer satisfaction, loyalty and value Meet Kampyle at the Online Retailer!

CONFERENCE & EXPO | 17-18 JULY 2012 internet marketing magazine june 2012

Drop by our booth #1234 to hear how Kampyle helps retailers to transform feedback into actionable insight and do better business.

www.kampyle.com

COPYWRITING

“THE AVENGERS” IN YOUR BUSINESS? By Bret Thomson “SMASH”. No time to procrastinate. Doesn’t second-guess. Zero hesitation. There’s only one speed, one focus, one objective: To Smash, conquer and demolish his task. (Don’t get distracted, take focused action) 4. Hawkeye: As Eben Pagan says, “Get Altitude”. Scale to the highest roof and look down at the whole picture. Keep an eye on what’s working, what’s not and spot the targets that’ll get the best results. (Take time to look at your whole business)

Image Copyright of Marvel Inc.

It’s the big rave right now... The Blockbuster flick, “The Avengers”. Pulse-pumping adrenaline fix for the year... Six superheroes: Captain America, Thor, Ironman, Hulk, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. Each with individual ‘gifts’ that, once united, can obliterate any enemy... (Except Chuck Norris, of course). So here’s my take on how to posses each of their unique skills... to decimate your competition and be the hero in your niche...

1. Captain America: Tactical thinker. Under extreme pressure he’ll whip out a strategic action plan with unquestionable confidence. He’ll delegate with such clarity and vision that others are compelled to follow his lead. (Lead with vision and confidence) 2. Thor: God of Thunder. He knows what his main strength is. His lightening Hammer. He doesn’t waste time picking up swords or guns. He knows what works and he’ll wield the hammer to annihilate his competition. (Know your strengths) 3.

The

Hulk.

One

5. Black Widow: Stay in the fight. Be grounded, stay where the action happens and sharpen your skills with street-smart, practical experience, not just theory or observation. (If you’re going to preach being an expert, get in the trenches and earn your respect) 6. Iron Man. Exude confidence almost to the point of arrogance. Display your skills with dynamic impressive demonstration. And have the intelligence to know your enemy. (Your clients won’t believe you’re the best until you believe in yourself and show them)

Let’s face it... we all need a bit of the avengers within us to triumph in our daily battle of entrepreword, neurship, right?

internet marketing magazine june 2012

But here’s a reality check... As any truth telling entrepreneur would admit... it’s not easy wearing all those hats in your business.

You can become a “Marketing Avenger” (That’s the name I gave my copywriting team as of 6 seconds ago).

True or true?

You just need the wisdom of knowing when to call in these superhero attributes...

I have days when I smash out work in true HULK fashion. And other days where Dr. Banner won’t unleash the HULK... no matter how many times I prod him. Maybe that’s just me? Anyway... Look, in a perfect world, sure, we ‘should’ encompass all these skills. And maybe you can. Just maybe... you can tap into ALL of these superhero attributes in any one time. If so, then hats off to you my friend... Maybe you should be the 7th Avenger? For me (and I’m guessing most of us) it’s a matter of timing. It’s knowing when to pull these skills in. I know instead of wielding my hammer (like I do), I need more “Hawkeye time” and “Captain America style” planning sessions... What about you? Moving on. Let me land this plane with some good news.

internet marketing magazine june 2012

Your mission: To avenge yourself from the clutches of marketing despair... eradicate your competition... and gain global domination in your niche! Think big. Be different.

Bret Thomson is one of Australia’s highest paid indemand copywriter/marketing & conversion strategists, best selling author, speaker, coach and mentor to thousands. Bret has been the secret weapon behind some of the largest (and most profitable) direct response marketing campaigns in Australia. His wickedly effective ability to nail the BIG IDEA is admired and respected by even the most seasoned marketing experts. You can get instant access to free video training form Bret by going to his blog www.bretthomson.com

EMAIL MARKETING

10 BEST EMAIL MARKETING TOOLS FOR SMALL BUSINESS By Carl Taylor Email Marketing must be the most misrepresented and misunderstood online marketing tool today. And yet, it is becoming more popular especially to ambitious small business owners and entrepreneurs. If used wisely, email marketing can be a very powerful tool that will increase not only sales but customer retention through the strengthening of your relationship with your prospects and customers. So often my clients say to me, I understand I should be using email marketing in my business, but where do I find the best Email Marketing tools available and how do I know they are the best. It’s obvious that email marketing is a fast way to reach your target market and distribute information and marketing materials. Plus it is so easy and convenient since the good ones will automate much of the process for you. Results are fast and astounding if you use the best Email Marketing tools.

marketing tools that you can choose from ranked from 1 to 10. I’ve ranked them based on my experience and from what feedback I’ve received from my clients and entrepreneur networks.

What I like most about Send Pepper however is that once you outgrow all the Send Pepper packages – and if you are serious about Email Marketing you will – is that it’s really the baby sister of Office Autopilot, an Email Marketing and While I highly recommend and use Automation CRM that is designed personally Office Autopilot, I’ve for entrepreneurs and informaranked it 3rd due to it being not tion marketers and all you need an entry level product so there- to do to upgrade to Office Autofore it’s baby sister Send Pepper pilot is click a button and all your gets the #1 spot. data comes with you – no painful migrations, or paying people to move your data. 1. Send Pepper – Affordable, Scalable Email Marketing and So if you are looking to just get Basic CRM started and then get more advanced later on – This is where I’d start.

This is perfect for small businesses, start-up companies and smalltime entrepreneurs who do not have a huge budget for marketing but you’re looking for a high-quality marketing tool.

They have 3 affordable packages to choose from – starting from $29.95 per month, then you can upgrade as your needs change and Today, Email Marketing software as you begin seeing success from are a dime a dozen. You have to your email marketing campaigns be careful in choosing the right up through two additional packprogram for your business. ages which gives you extra features like shopping cart plugins Here is a list of the best email and more contacts.

2. Aweber – The Most Used Email Marketing Software in The World

This is probably the most affordable and easy to use Email Marketing program for small business and entrepreneurs. For only $1 for the first month and $19.00 per month for the following months with a money-back guarantee, you get a great deal and great results.

internet marketing magazine june 2012

The reason Aweber is the most popular system in the world today is due to it’s 99% deliverability rate, proven and tested. This means 99% of emails get through spam filters and are delivered to inboxes. The thing that you might not like with the Aweber’s service is one of the reasons its so popular – its 99% delivery rate. To achieve this 99% delivery rate Aweber is extremely strict with its opt in process, not allowing you to Import your past or current customers that you have in another system without sending them all an email saying “You’ve just been added to a list, Click here to confirm” this can means you lose up to 50% of your database when you move to them. As the most popular system, you should check it out. I’ve used it but definitely preferred Send Pepper due to Importing and scalability.

Now it’s not necessarily cheap, which is why I recommend starting with Send Pepper and upgrading as you need the features. Their starting package “Pro” is $297 per month and their Team package which allows you a team of 5 users is $597 per month.

Packages do start from $199 a month going all the way up to $999 per month. But there is a required setup fee of roughly $2,000+

There are also some challenges if you aren’t based on the East coast of the United States, the This is the tool I myself and many time and date for all schedulof my marketing and high level ing and all aspects in infusionentrepreneur friends use, due to soft will not be in your time and its flexibility through the use of you’ll have to manually convert “active response rules” – which the time yourself. It was for this trigger based on certain actions reason mainly that I chose not to your database contacts take. go with Infusionsoft myself, plus also a lot of features that Office If you are serious about your Autopilot now has built in are admarketing and how you will au- ditional monthly fees for in Infutomate your sales and prospect sionsoft. pipeline. Office Autopilot is a great choice to make. If you have a team of 5+ and want a strong automation tool, check out Infusionsoft. 4. InfusionSoft – Sales Automation and CRM for Small to Medium Sized Business 5. MailChimp – Free Email Marketing Tool – Great for Startups

In the Australian startup community MailChimp is by far the 3. Office Autopilot – Your Marmost popular and I’m pretty sure keting on Autopilot (I personit’s because it offers some great ally use this for my email mar- Infusionsoft is very similar to features, a really funky user inketing) Office Autopilot feature for fea- terface and branding, and to get ture, but while Office Autopilot started its 100% free. focuses more on the small business solopreneurs and businesses with a team of less than three staff, Infusionsoft’s CRM abilities makes it better suited to compaThis is a very useful tool that I nies with sales staff and larger highly recommend for most small teams. Mailchimp is a great email marbusinesses and for the serious keting tool for business who send entrepreneurs. It is very effec- Boasting automation functions of out monthly marketing materials tive software that will help you email, payment processing, af- to regular and potential custommarket, promote, up sell, moni- filiate program and all the good- ers and they don’t really want tor and follow up marketing and ies you want for an automated to create sequenced marketing sales efforts across all your web- online business or an offline campaigns. It has been a while sites and lead capture channels. business with strong online sales since I’ve used MailChimp but channels.

internet marketing magazine june 2012

it doesn’t really handle Autoresponder marketing sequences very well and is better suited for individual email blasts. Overall it’s an easy-to-use email marketing tool but I found it to be less professional and flexible when it comes to true marketing automation.

it comes to Email Marketing. What GetResponse does well is its tracking and montitoring, very similar to Google Analytics, you get a huge amount of flexibility in how to interpret the data.

9. Vertical Response – Email Marketing Made Simple and Effective Simple but very effective email marketing tool for less than $10 per month. They have good tracking options and professional templates plus excellent customer service.

If you are a small startup just starting out, it might be a great place to start. There is also heaps of documentation and tutorials on how to use it, but the feedback I’ve heard 6. Constant Contact – Profes- is that if you want to speak with sional Designs Without A Design- someone, their customer support er isn’t that reliable and you’ll often turn to a Google search to find the answer instead.

They’ve recently acquired and moved into the social marketing space as well, and the email platform will soon integrate with their Roost system that managed Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn It’s worth a look, while doing your all from one place, very similar to comparisons – I’ve not used it so Hootsuite actually. can’t say for sure. I’ve never personally used it, so With 400 templates to choose can’t comment much more, but it from, surely you will find one 8. iContact – Easy, Intuitive and has been recommended to me a suitable for your business. Con- Affordable Email Marketing number of times before. And I’ll stant Contact offers a great 60be watching the Social Marketing day trial and affordable monthspace for a while. ly rates starting from $15 per month. 10. 1ShoppingCart – Lots of FeaThe platform also includes extra tures, Used by Many, Basic Email features like sending Survey’s but Marketing these are additional services that Easy to use but sophisticated will be charged for. email marketing features. Out- A shopping cart system for your standing user interface that is website that also offers basic If you are looking for a system not intimidating to anyone. Their email marketing. This platform is that sends graphical and profes- prices are affordable and iCon- again quite popular but I’m not sional looking newsletters easily tact offers many customisation entirely sure why. As an email without needing a web designer options when it comes to sign up marketing platform it is very –Constant Contact is a good bet. and lead capture forms. poor, which is why most people who use it then integrate it with It’s a popular system, again I have another like Aweber. 7. GetResponse – Reports and no direct knowledge only what is Analytics That Marketers Drool passed on to me. Check it out and Over see if it suits you. Another popular platform when

internet marketing magazine june 2012

Email Marketing

Also if you are not a tech-savvy person, it may take some time to get used to the software, as its interface is restrictive and not always easy to follow. It made the list, mainly because it is used a lot, but personally I wouldn’t actually recommend it. If you want to find out more, take a look at 1ShoppingCart. So Bottom Line – What Are The Best Email Marketing Tools? From the list above, if it’s not already clear my recommendations are all affordable, effective and user-friendly. If you are looking for entry level go with Send Pepper or Aweber, just be wary of Aweber’s strictness on requiring double opt ins. And if you are serious about your email marketing Office Autopilot and Infusionsoft are the best Email Marketing tools for today’s full service online marketing. Do your own research, give them a try… and ensure you have a great system that meets your business needs. Carl Taylor is the Author of #1 New & Notable Business Book ‘Red Means Go!’ and Founder of The Marketing Matrix a deep-dive training program for entrepreneurs and small business owners to Attract more Leads, Convert more Customers and Increase Profits. www.carltaylor.com.au

internet marketing magazine june 2012

• L I M I T E D

O F F E R •

Heralded as the most extraordinary marketing mind in Australia, John Dwyer has opened a limited number of memberships in his exclusive Imagineers Club. For just $1,947 per month, this membership gives your business personal access to John and his powder keg of creative sales building marketing ideas. John’s Wow Factor Marketing Principles are very different from conventional thinking, hence why his clients boast about exceptional sales increases in a matter of months. He’s the guy who convinced Jerry Seinfeld to be spokesman for a small Australian building society – a marketing coup of epic proportions. THE RESULT? The building society tripled its market share in just two years! John has released just 9 memberships, so if you’d like to have sales exploding ideas on tap when you need them, quickly visit the Products Page at his website at:

www.theinstituteofwow.com PHONE ENQUIRIES: 07 55 919 566

internet marketing magazine june 2012

MOBILE MARKETING

MOBILE MARKETING By Ludwina Dautovic

I recently recorded an interview for my podcast show – Red Tent Radio - with a woman who specialises in mobile marketing from the USA – Tracy Repchuk. The conversation left me really curious about this whole concept of mobile marketing and how it could impact my business. I also found myself thinking ‘Gee, another thing to learn’. But as I delved into my research I discovered that mobile marketing and being mobile ready is not that difficult at all. However, it is necessary. If you have a website and particularly if your business is primarily online, you must be not only mobile ready by utilising mobile marketing strategies. I also learned from Tracy Repchuk, that if your website is not mobile friendly, Google will penalise you by lessening the ranking of your website.

case, you could consider having a mobile version of your website created. I thought this might be a huge process with high costs attached but I was pleasantly surprised to discover it’s not. There are a number of services I found online with programs that equip you to make the necessary changes. One in particular that caught my eye was Duda Mobile. I had a tinker with it and it seemed quite simple to use and fairly straight forward. There is a free version of the program and then a premium service which is only $9 per month that gives you special features like: click to call, click to text, mobile maps and more. It’s definitely worth a shot and I’ll be giving it a go. Now let’s talk about some mobile marketing strategies and how you can implement them into your business model.

It’s also important to note that more people will use their mobile phones to get online than their PC’s. Users will expect their mobile experience to be as good as their desktop experience. Add to that the explosion of QR codes and SMS marketing and you’ll see that mobile marketing is an opportunity you’ll not want to miss. Mobile Friendly Websites Let’s begin by ensuring your website is mobile friendly. How does your website view on a mobile device? How fast does it load? If you were a visitor to this site, would you be pleased with the experience? According to Oracle Digital, “you want to avoid being ‘flashy’. Flash can be good for some purposes, but being flashy isn’t mobile friendly. IPhone users for example, don’t recognise flash so your iPhone using audience will only see a blank screen. “ Mobile Version It’s worthwhile to note, that even though your website may be easily viewable on a mobile device, the experience still may be taxing for the user. In this

internet marketing magazine june 2012

QR Codes Let’s start with an explanation of what a QR code is. According to What Is A QR Code “a QR code or ‘Quick Response Code’ is a type of two-dimensional barcode that can be read using smart phones and dedicated QR reading devices, that link directly to text, emails, websites, phone numbers and more! “

These QR codes can be used in print media, billboards, videos, web pages and more. The QR code is scanned using a smart phone that has a QR code scanner application like ‘QR Reader’ which I found for free in the app store. There are a number to choose from and most are free. You simply open the app, scan the QR code and it takes the user directly to the webpage you select. I tested it today in a video I created. I added a QR code for the page I wanted the user to visit and it sent them to the web address I selected in an instant! In my interview with Tracy Repchuk she gave me an awesome tip: Put a QR code on your business card that is directly linked to your free offer on your website. Imagine that in use at a networking event! The applications for this are endless! To get you started I found a simple, free QR code generator at www. qrcode.kaywa.com. The program is basic, but it will get you started.

mobile friendly, you should be also thinking about SMS marketing. However like all marketing strategies, there are things to consider when implementing an SMS marketing campaign. The basics being: make sure you collect their mobile phone numbers in your contact forms, get their permission before sending texts, don’t overload with messages, give them an opt out option, don’t send the message in the middle of the night, build rapport and don’t be the pushy salesman. Beyond that, it’s a viable and accessible option that many businesses are underutilising. I recently experimented with SMS marketing with a networking event I was hosting. I sent an SMS campaign to my list and the instant replies and bookings were phenomenal. I then sent another text to the guest list the day before the event with a reminder of the details and again I had replies of gratitude for the ease of communication. When used wisely and respectfully, the results will be unparalleled. The world of mobile marketing is vast and there’s a lot more I could have covered, however, it’s best to start of with one bite at a time. If you were to implement the three elements discussed here it will be a terrific start to getting you mobile friendly. Just to recap – 1) Make sure your website is mobile friendly or create a mobile version, 2) Implement QR codes in your online and offline marketing, 3) Begin building a mobile phone list and start to market directly to their mobile devices.

Text Marketing According to SMS Marketing NW, “It takes 90 minutes for the average person to respond to an email. It takes 90 seconds for the average person to respond to a text message.” That’s powerful. Email open rates are dying. In fact, I am continually hearing that email marketing has had its day. When you consider the global statistics of mobile users around the world, as a marketer it makes sense to market directly to the device they are closest too – their mobile phone. SMS is the only mobile app that is compatible with 99.9% of mobile phones. With an open rate above 95%, and when thinking

Ludwina Dautovic is the host of the global podcast show Red Tent Radio. For inquiries about being on the show or how to subscribe, simply visit the website – www.RedTentRadio.com. We also offer new and start-up businesses the opportunity to be featured on our new show, ‘The Business Podcast Show’, as a part of our Media Package. To find out more go to: www.TheBusinessPodcastShow.com or call 1300 799 491 in Australia or +61 3 9939 4258 for international callers. If you’d like more information about how to podcast, go to www.HowToPodcastLikeaPro.com.

internet marketing magazine june 2012

DIGITAL PRODUCT STRATEGY

UNCOVERING THE MYSTERY

WHY EBOOKS SELL MORE THAN PHYSICAL BOOKS

(and how you can use the same principles to increase your sales) By Leon Jay However there is much more to it than that. This phenomenon of digital costing more than physical I have only ever seen occur with ‘How to’ books. Software usually charges a small premium for a physical version to be shipped to you. Music, movies and fiction books typically sells at a discount in digital format. This means that the instant delivery cannot account for too much. So, the search continues… For a long time people were sceptical if you could sell an ebook at all. Now we know it is not only possible, but some ebooks even sell for more than most physical books. How is this possible?

With ebooks the potential customer has usually found themselves faced with a dedicated sales page to this one book. And they have usually found themselves there because of a careful lead generation process that has ensured they are a targeted prospect.

After all, everyone knows a physical book cost money to setup, print and ship (even if it is only to Even with nonfiction if there is a physical version the actual bookstore itself). A physical book even of the book then the ebook will sell for less than its physical counterpart. So this gives us another cost money to store as it takes up real space. clue… Yet ebooks can often sell for more despite often having less actual content in them, being poorly The sales letter must promise information that edited in comparison and also being virtually free will lead to some benefit that the consumer will not find elsewhere. If someone is really keen to to store, reproduce and deliver. learn something and the solution lies but a few The reason is simple. And is has everything to do dollars and a couple of clicks away, chances are they will take it. with the method of selling. You see in a book store there are many books fighting for your attention. Each one usually has only the spine to grab you, and at best the front and back covers to sell you.

And I believe this is 80% of the reason people will pay more. The simple dedicated focus on a promise to a solution to something they can’t find (or are too lazy to find) elsewhere.

Some people have said it is because customers To further increase sales then the power of scarwant fast delivery and are impatient. And it is city is bought into play. This needs to be done in true that instant gratification does play a part. the right way of course.

internet marketing magazine june 2012

I have seen sales pages that say ‘limited copies’ – for a digital product! One time offers (OTOs) work well as they can package other bonuses or discounts in for buying NOW. This leads us to the power of the sales process itself.

If someone arrives at your site consider how they got there. Did they find it though SEO, from an ad, via an affiliate link or some offline advertising? What are they expecting to find when they arrive, and do you meet this expectation?

Once on your site do you offer them a range of choice or focus them into a funnel. Contrary to This is where a squeeze page (sometimes called a many peoples logic, the sales funnel will usually landing page) or an optin form on an information give a much higher conversion rate over providing site leads to an offer, or series of offers.The pur- maximum choice. pose of this is to take full advantage of a targeted prospects full attention. Something that is hard to Try to start with a low resistance entry point. Either get, and even harder to keep, in almost any other a free optin or a low price point offer. situation. Once the visitor to your site takes this first action You have their undivided attention, and you have it consider what you know before making the next ofwhile they are focused on gathering information on fer. You know they are interested in your niche, and your niche. This kind of targeting and focus should you know that they are seeking information there not be taken lightly, nor should it be squandered. and then. So offer something too good to refuse. By creating a sales process you are able to offer products or services in a sequence that makes sense to an interested prospect. Each offer should increase the value and be targeted to the previous action someone tool to arrive at any given page in the process.

Create an offer that is targeted to their first action (opting in or purchasing your front end offer). Create time scarcity by making the offer unique to that page. If they don’t take action then and there they will miss out. People hate missing out.

Let me explain…

An Example of a One Time Offer with FusionHQ

internet marketing magazine june 2012

You could offer a bonus not usually included, or a discount not usually available. Either way make it good. They will then make one of two choices. Either buy or not buy. If they buy and you have something else that is relevant and can add additional value then now is the best time to offer it. (This is known as an upsell).

If they don’t buy however then consider why. You know they are interested in your niche otherwise they would not be on that page. And for the same reason you know they are looking for more information. Perhaps your price point was too high, or maybe they don’t trust you enough yet to hand over money. This is the time you might want to try a downsell. Either a free trial of your product, or a lite version for a cheaper price. Either way you will make extra sales that you would not of otherwise had. By using a good piece of sales flow software you can build, change and test these flows to get the maximum

internet marketing magazine june 2012

number of sales for each visitor to your site. This same principle can of course be applied to all digital media. Software, audios and video courses all benefit from this method of selling. So to summarize… If you want to sell digital products: • Focus on a targeted audience • Promise and ensure instant delivery • Make sure it is not available in a physical format if you want to get maximum price for the digital version • Sell the benefits the information contained in your product will provide them • Use some form of scarcity (such as a good OTO offer) to increase conversions, and make use of a sales process to get the best ROI.

Leon Jay is an international author and speaker on the subject of internet marketing. His book ‘Do Less Work, Make More Money’ has rave reviews from readers and industry experts alike. You can download your free copy at www.dolessworkmakemoremoney. com/imm He is also founder and CEO of FusionHQ, a drag and drop sales and marketing platform for internet based businesses. For more information visit www.fusionhq. com/imm

WEB TOOLS

15 FREE TOOLS TO CREATE AWESOME CONTENT By Zeke Camusio Blogging is so 2011! Everybody is blogging these days, so if you want your content to stand out you need to start creating some rich-media content. These are some free and easy-to-use tools that I’m sure you’ll love. Jing is a free screen recording software. It’s ideal to create video demos and to turn PowerPoint presentations into awesome videos.

Infogram is another really cool GoAnimate is a free tool that Infographics option. allows you to create animated videos in minutes. Really, really cool.

Hohli allows you to create awesome charts very easily.

Animoto is a free video editing tool. I love it. Wordle is a great tool to create word clouds. Tools to Create Awesome Infographics Infographics tend to get a lot of traffic and links. It’s normally very expensive to hire designers or data visualization experts to do your infographics, but these tools will allow you to create your own: Icon Archive has a very extensive collection of great-looking PikToChart is very powerful and icons for your infographics. easy to use.

QuizMaker People love quizzes. They’re fun and engaging. Create yours in minutes with this cool tool.

internet marketing magazine june 2012

Meme Generator Create your own memes with this free tool. It’s really easy.

Dipity is a really fun tool that allows you to create timelines in minutes.

More Ideas for Great Content I hope you liked the tools in this post. Here are some more content ideas based on what has “What I Really…” Generator worked well for our clients: • Interview experts in your industry. • Conduct webinars and show your attendees how you’ve helped other clients just like them. Make sure that at least 95% of your presentation is high-quality content; keep the marketing pitch under 5% of the total time. • Simple tools (like interest You’ve probably seen these all rate calculators and calorie over Facebook. You can now cretrackers) can be built for $50 ate your own in two minutes. and they’re extremely effective. You can use oDesk to find Try other cool image generators affordable developers. from the same company: Poster • Free whitepapers and Generator, Phone Text Generaebooks work really well, too. tor and Difference Between. Invest in a great designer to make sure that the content StoryBird is the coolest way to looks amazing. tell stories. Zeke Camusio is is a serial entrepreneur who has built and sold three successful businesses. Zeke is the author of The Internet Marketing Bible and CEO of The Outsourcing Company, an Internet marketing agency with over 300 clients (including Chevrolet, Burger King and Subaru).

internet marketing magazine june 2012

WEBSITE SECURITY

TRUST SEALS, IT’S A NO BRAINER

Website security isn’t a new thing, however the need for it is growing at a rapid rate. Every year hackers get better and smarter, and identity theft, fraud, and data theft grow exponentially. Fortunately, website security helps prevent security holes that allow hackers to retrieve sensitive data. But in addition to protection and security, website security scanning also contributes to more sales, and customer trust. Our customers at Trust Guard have long boasted about their improved conversion rate after purchasing our services. The Trust Seals, which are placed directly on the website after we scan it and verify it, are visible to the public. Trust Seals let shoppers know that the merchant is safe, secure, and has been third party

verified. The small seal basically says, “this is a real business, they do what they say and mean what they do, and they have a safe and secure system so you won’t be victim of data theft after a purchase.”

trust seals. Like having an SSL certificate, it should be just “what you do”. I initially doubted the hidden power of trust seals. I thought that because of our stunning web site and incredible product, people would just trust us. Nope.The Trust Guard seals improved our conversion by 59.61%. I recommend Trust Guard because they are upfront, transparent, and their system automatically tests itself so you can see how well it works for you. The competition seems to focus on marketing & sales. Trust Guard focuses on results.”

Merchants shouldn’t be willing to take the risk of not having security scanning. Not only is PCI Scanning REQUIRED by credit card companies where non-compliance can result in massive fines, but having scanning and Trust Seals actually boosts sales. It’s really a win-win situation. The alternative is to make less money, become a victim of hack- ~Paul Young, Skybound Software. ers, and be potentially fined by the credit card (name), for us at For more information on Trust Trust Guard it’s a no brainer. Guard’s Trust Seals visit the TrustGuard website. “There shouldn’t be a decision whether or not a website uses internet marketing magazine june 2012

Important: Become a member today

Your Free 24 Month Subscription is Valued

at $311.88

& Now Includes Members Area Access

and you will be notified the instant new episodes of ‘Internet Marketing Magazine’ become available... You will also receive access to the Members Area for video training, expert interviews, eBooks, webinars and much more…

Register your details now at http://InternetMarketingMag.net to get access to the Members Area, the Webinars, the Expert Interviews & all Back Issues’

Experience the Benefits of the Internet Marketing Magazine in your life this year If you have enjoyed this edition of ‘Internet Marketing Magazine’ please head along to http://www.facebook.com/ InternetMarketingMagazine and click ‘Like’ or ‘Share’ to share the message with fellow switched on marketers, business owners and entrepreneurs

> 34 ADVERTISEMENT

internet marketing magazine june 2012