Internet Marketing Magazine September 2012

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LEON JAY

SOFTWARE BUSINESS MASTERY >> THE ORIGINAL AND BEST INTERNET MARKETING MAGAZINE internet marketing magazine DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR THE IPAD, IPHONE, ANDROID AND THE WEB september 2012

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INTERNET UPDATE

THE STATE OF THE INTERNET In this section of Internet Marketing Magazine we cover the low down on what are the big plays that have happened online recently and how they affect you.

Cloud Accelerated Browsing – Amazon Silk Amazon, when it released it’s Kindle Fire tablet recently introduced a new “split browser” Browser Architecture that it is calling Amazon Silk. It is a radical new paradigm that accelerates the power of the mobile device hardware by using the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services (EC2) Cloud.

The result is a faster web browsing experience.

Modern Web sites are getting more and more complex. Rendering a single Web page for many sites requires hitting tens of domains and upwards of 100 files. That can be sluggish even on modern desktops, and they have a lot more horsepower than the Kindle Fire’s 7-inch package can hold.

is instantly available to transmit. Amazon intends to put its machine learning expertise to use determining which pages users are likely to load so that the relevant content can be aggressively pre-cached and ready when needed.

Amazon can take advantage of its high-bandwidth connection to the Internet backbone to retrieve individual page elements faster than the user would be able to natively on the device.

This is great from a browsing speed point of view, but what about privacy?

The reality is much like Google and Facebook, Amazon is watching you and learning about your preferences, as each Kindle is tied to an Amazon ID, which gives Amazon a great deal of information about you already.

To solve this problem Amazon Silk will start learning what sites and pages you like and will begin caching them for you on it Amazon Web Services Platform.

Then when you make a web browser request it will Amazon is going to be in a position to know a great be able to serve up your content much quicker than deal about your Web browsing habits along with your a normal web request. buying habits and media habits. Now Amazon is in a position to know what books you buy, what shows you watch, the Web sites you visit and much more.

Amazon advises that the collected usage data is anonymous and stored in aggregate, thus protecting user privacy. It’s also possible to completely turn off the split browsing mode and use Silk like a conventional Web browser.

So will Silk stay just for the Tablet Market?

Amazon Silk—Amazon’s Revolutionary Cloud-Accelerated Web Browser

Amazon can also use its massive cloud storage infrastructure to cache enormous amounts of content that is commonly loaded by users, ensuring that it

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We don’t expect the Silk browser to stay confined to the Kindle Fire for long. We suspect that Amazon is going to be releasing a Silk desktop browser in the near future.

Amazon’s New Secret Weapon: Delivery Lockers

bling for the first time as revenue growth slows at the world’s No. 1 social network.

Gamesys, an independent gaming company, launched a version of online Bingo for Facebook users in Britain who are at least 18, and which the company said will pay winners real money. Gamesys also announced plans to offer virtual slots gambling on Facebook.

“Real money gaming is a popular and well-regulated activity in the UK and we are allowing a partner to offer their games to adult users on the Facebook platform in a safe and controlled manner,” Facebook said in a statement.

An Amazon Locker in a New York City grocery store

The Web giant has quietly installed large metal cabinets called Amazon Locker in grocery, convenience and drugstore outlets that function like virtual doormen, accepting packages for customers for a later pickup.

Facebook spokeswoman Linda Griffin said there are no current plans to offer gambling in any other countries or with any other partners besides Gamesys.

Apple-Samsung Patent Lawsuit: Samsung Ordered Amazon began putting lockers in Seattle, New York To Pay Apple $1.05 Billion state and near Washington, D.C. and are growing into more areas.

After a year of litigation, a jury decided in August that Samsung ripped off the innovative technology The online retailer has opened at least 50 self-ser- used by Apple to create its revolutionary iPhone vice pickup stations in a few U.S. cities. It’s more and iPad. for Apartment dwellers than traditional residential houses. By adding the lockers, Amazon is address- The jury ordered Samsung to pay Apple $1.05 biling the concerns of some urban apartment dwellers lion in the latest skirmish of a global legal battle who fear they’ll miss a delivery or have their items between the two tech giants. An appeal is expectstolen from their doorstep. ed.

How it works is that Amazon ship the item to the locker, then you receive an email to go pick it up.

It’s convenient for Amazon, but is it really convenient for you as the online shopper? The jury is still out on that one, as on one hand the security is better, but on the other – you don’t really feel like having to go out to the shop to pickup something that you bought online as it feels like it defeats the purpose and convenience of buying it online in the first place.

The jury found that several Samsung products illegally used such Apple creations as the “bounceback” feature when a user scrolls to an end image, and the ability to zoom text with a tap of a finger.

Apple lawyers plan to formally demand Samsung pull its most popular cell phones and computer tablets from the U.S. market. The result of this is still to be seen unfold in the next month or two.

“Today’s verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer.

Facebook to allow Gambling in the UK It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices” Samsung are quoted as Facebook Inc will allow users in Britain to wager saying. real money on its service, opening its doors to gaminternet marketing magazine september 2012

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Most Popular Smartphones in the US

15.4 percent of US mobile subscribers.

the Kindle to be very prominent.

Mobile Commerce Continues to For the Best Selling Book on Am- Rise azon – Kindle outselling Physical 26% of America’s top 500 e-reThe study surveyed more than The Scholastic blockbuster ‘Hun- tailers now have a mobile site or 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers ger Games’ has just surpassed the app, and the country’s total mand found Samsung to be the top ‘Harry Potter’ series as the best- commerce sales are expected to handset manufacturer overall selling book of all time (print and reach $17.5 billion this year, up with 25.6 percent market share. e-book combined) on the leading 64% from $10.7 billion a year ago.

U.S. bookseller, Amazon.

If you market and sell online, Amazon announced that the Kin- here are facts you should condle versions of Hunger Games sider: Consumers worldwide have books outsold print versions by purchased 67 million Apple iPads a ratio of nearly four to one (3.7 since the product was introduced to one to be exact). So, for every two years ago. There are now print copy of the Hunger Games 218 million iPhones in use. And sold on Amazon, nearly four e- last year alone all manufacturers book copies were sold. shipped 492 million smartphones.

This illustrates a massive shift in Samsung was closely followed by the way that the general public If your online stores aren’t optiLG with 18.8 percent share. Ap- now want to consume books, with mized for these mobile devices, ple continued to gain share in the the move from physical to eBooks your business is certain to lose OEM market, ranking third with via sophisticated readers such as sales as a result.

Comscore released its recent figures about Smartphone penetration in the US.

From the Desk of the Editor Last month was a great month for Internet Marketing Magazine with the ‘Supply Chain & eCommerce Masterclass’ with Ruslan Kogan generating some real interest from those in online retail.

getting good value from Internet Marketing Magazine I’d really appreciate it if you could spare 1 minute of your time and click this link to give us a quick honest review (click ‘view in iTunes’ then scroll down and click ‘write a review’, thanks :).

This month’s expert audio interview with Leon Jay will be available in the members area in the next few days. We’ll send an email out to the member’s Until next time… Wishing you the best of success once it’s live there. If you are not a member yet online please feel free to register for it today at http:// internetmarketingmag.net/become-member/ Important: We’re working on building the number of reviews we have on the Apple platforms so as to keep dominant rankings in the search. If you are

GregCassar

Greg Cassar Internet Marketing Strategist & Editor – Internet Marketing Magazine

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Make Your Website Easy to Read & Effective on all Mobile Phones

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EXPERT INTERVIEW

SOFTWARE BUSINESS MASTERY An Interview by Internet Marketing Strategist Greg Cassar Leon Jay is a serial entrepreneur and Internet Marketing Marketer. Originally with an Electrical Engineering and Natural Therapist background, Leon ended up as an Internet Marketing Marketer, and later became very successful in the development and software business. Leon has gone on to build two very successful seven-figure businesses.

Greg: Leon, you’ve got quite a varied and diverse background prior to the Internet Marketing. Can you tell us a little bit about that, and then how you first came across Internet Marketing?

Leon: Like most people in the business I wasn’t born with an ‘Internet Marketing Degree’, and in fact I don’t know anybody who is in the business that has really studied formal marketing. My background started when originally I studied electrical engineering. But most of my actual work experience was much more diverse than that - I served for a time as a grave digger; I worked for a while as a Special Needs assistant; I worked for British Telecom as a support person on the phones for a while, because I actually failed as one of the sales team. I trained in British Telecom as sales personnel, but it never really felt good to me selling products to old ladies that they couldn’t really afford them, so unfortunately my sales volume wasn’t very high.

Eventually I found my calling as a natural therapist. I trained in a variety of different techniques, which kind of ironically again later on became the foundation for my Internet Marketing, because as I studied a lot about how the mind works and the way that the emotions work. I found that helped me understand the psychology of the customer and the psychology required in a sales letter when I became a marketer. But it was actually while I was trying to market one of my early businesses as a physical therapist that I really started learning more formal business and marketing.

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My first online income was an accident really. I built a website based around a natural therapy’s technique which was relatively new at the time, and there was a lot of people searching for information, but there wasn’t a lot of content on the internet about it. I basically did everything right completely accidentally without even knowing it at the time. I built a very content rich website in a low competitive market with a lot of interest and put up a couple of affiliate links to some DVDs and made a sale.

I didn’t really think it was going to work, and I didn’t really think much about it, but that was what triggered things. What inspired me was when I woke up one morning and found I’d made more in an affiliate commission than I had done from seeing clients and working really hard to make that same amount of money.

Greg: So you got the bug at that stage?

Leon: Yes absolutely. It opened my eyes to what was possible - and being a bit of a global traveller, I move around a lot, which made building a therapies business quite challenging. Also this ability to make money from wherever I was, work on it whenever I wanted to - the green lights went off and I was awakened to a new industry.

Greg: A few years back you worked with Greg Jacobs on a very successful project at the time called, WP Mage. What is WP Mage, for those who haven’t come across it, and what is a bit of the story of that launch?

Leon: Greg Jacobs came to me with this idea for a product that he wanted to launch as a ClickBank product. I took a look at it and I saw that there was a lot of overlap with an idea that I’d had personally.

The basic premise was that a lot of people used WordPress as a platform to create SEO based websites for long tail keywords at that time. There was a lot of installation of particular plug-ins and of certain types of theme, SEO settings, etc. What I realised was that while the method that he was using was extremely effective, it was also quite time consuming. So, we re-designed an interface for installing WordPress in a specifically configured way to make it optimised for long tail keyword SEO sites. And that’s essentially what WP Mage was. So essentially it enabled people to install websites that could have 1,000, 2,000, 5,000 & upwards pages of content without really putting any effort in. You could build these sites within just one or two minutes, and without any form of technical experience, just by inserting a key word list.

Greg: Where was it grabbing the content from?

Leon: It used a variety of different sources; YouTube, article sites and Yahoo Answers. It was a variety of different material.

Greg: So it was like an aggregator; it aggregated content on your site?

Leon: Yes exactly. It just compiled a variety of different sources based around specific keywords. It

is not my personal style of marketing. I personally prefer more high-end websites, but I could see that it was working for Greg and so I helped him on that launch, helped develop a marketing plan to not only release the software, but also build a brand for himself, which obviously he’s gone on to utilise very effectively.

Greg: Did you go through a formal launch process with that product?

Leon: Yes absolutely. I was a fifty percent partner on that project, just behind the scenes. Basically we formulated everything, even down to the actual design of the interface.

Greg: It is an interesting launch project that you went through and it was 100 percent relevant at the time. Yes, full credit to you for pulling off a massive launch there.

You’re obviously now very established and you have a good track record in the software business, in particular automating business processes and marketing process etc. What is it that you like about the software business as a business model compared to other business models online?

Leon: It’s not just software persay. Obviously WP Mage was software based and we did very well with it however, WP Mage wasn’t my ideal software model and the What I did with WP Mage was to reason I say that is simply because think about the marketing before it was a one-off licence fee for we even built the product. So, we the actual software. That works looked at how to simplify the in- well, and is a preferred model terface right down. How we could compared to say an information systematise it to a point that when product - the problem with inforthe marketing came it could be mation products is that there are demonstrated in a very easy and so many of them out there, there effective way that people could is so much competition with them understand. and there is so much good, free information out there these days.

Greg: And is the product still out So software gives a lot higher valand about, WP Mage? ue.

Leon: I left that project some time ago. The latest version of the product is now called Monster Mage.

Greg: One thing that I was thinking about it was whether or not Google would like that sort of site anymore, with all their recent updates in 2012. So that individual one may be more relevant in 2009 than it is in 2012.

Leon: I totally agree with you.

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Also I think people can really appreciate the value that it can bring for their business. With WP Mage it saved people a huge amount of time. It saved people a lot of out-source fees, in terms of what they were spending and getting WordPress installed and configured for them. And so it was a valuable product to them.

than just providing them information. So that makes perfect sense.

Have you tested upfront fee with trailing continuity versus, just trailing continuity right from the word go?

Leon: Yes we have. When we first started developing our latHowever, when it was launched, est project, which is FusionHQ, it was designed to generate a we did start that as a lifetime large amount of income in a access. We had to do that realshort period of time, but then ly because in the early days the close down (launch style). software was in a very raw, very basic state, and so we recognised The way that we’ve gone on to that people were unlikely to stick develop other software is much with us long term. At the same more about a monthly subscrip- time we needed people to invest tion based service. The reason I in it to motivate them to use the love that is that you’re deliver- system. We tried free to begin ing a high value service, a high with, but people just didn’t apvalue product on a monthly basis preciate what was there. So by that obviously if people aren’t getting them to pay for it we finding valuable they will stop found that people started using their subscription. it and gave us a lot more feedback that helped us develop the With information membership product. websites, people tend to drop off very quickly. When they get the information they want from it, they don’t keep going back to them on a regular basis. Where as with software, if people get When we came to a critical point into using your software they’re where we were able to charge going to keep using it month in quite a high price point for a lifeand month out. So their reten- time access we then moved over tion rates are far, far higher, and to a monthly model which was a of course the value delivered scary time for us, because logic to your customer is significantly dictates that people don’t like higher. monthlies and therefore we expected the conversion would deGreg: The continuity side of the crease. Actually, what we found business is definitely better than was that wasn’t the case at all. information products, because We found we were able to mainespecially when someone starts tain very comparable conversion using your service then they’ve rates, but of course the lifetime got a dependency on it and it is value of the customer was sigserving them real value, rather nificantly higher. So, while there

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was a minor drop in conversion rates, it was so insignificant in comparison to the increase in the lifetime value of the customer.

Now, even though we’ve had to do this from a business perspective it actually also enables us to deliver a better service to the customer as well. That’s because there’s a lot of monthly overheads that go in to providing a quality service, and a lot of ongoing development costs.

Just to go back to the question earlier about why do I like software products, I’m guessing we’re comparing that against maybe more traditional information products. With an information product – let’s say you’re making a membership site it is very easy to put a lot of very high value content in there in the early days, but it is hard to keep improving that information, because you use up the best of the information that is available and you really start struggling to find high value content to add to it. Whereas with software it is almost like you can’t stop coming up with new ideas to keep improving it. It is far easier, on a long-term basis, to keep improving and finding much better ideas and adding far more interesting features and refining interfaces etc with software than it is with an information product.

So we have a team of programmers that work around the clock to constantly improve things, and of course they come at a cost.

So, basically our customers now help fund the constant development of the software, but they are getting very from that

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The reality is we’re not trying to build the largest list - we’re trying to make the most amount of sales.

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FusionHQ.com

because they’re getting the constant updates, and they’re getting the constant improvements at a fraction of the cost compared to trying to develop it themselves. Whereas, if you’ve bought a script, or a piece of software for a one-off fee, it usually becomes outdated very quickly – the software dies because the marketer who sold it to you cannot keep investing into it without a recurring income coming from it. They’re looking at the software as a short term project, making their money and then walking away to move on to the next project.

managed the membership site area, we needed another to manage the affiliate tracking, we needed another to integrate with the auto responder service, and we needed sales processes that were built on static HTML pages connected together with all of the other services integrated. It took several weeks to just set up and configure everything. This was three professionals working on a project and still taking three to four weeks to configure everything, and then another week to iron out the bugs. Now the project was a great success – we had a lot of sales. But of course when you have a lot of sales you Greg: You mentioned your flagship product these have a fair few refunds too. days, which is FusionHQ. For those who haven’t come across it, what is FusionHQ and how did it Now each refund took between 8-9 minutes to procome about? cess on average, because we would have to refund the payment inside of PayPal, then we would need Leon: Fusion HQ is a multi-tool platform for Inter- to go to the membership site management script net Marketers. If you think about the various differ- and reverse the customers access there, then we ent tools that an information marketer or an affili- would need to go to the affiliate tracking script and ate marketer would need you would think of sales reverse the commissions there. It was not a very funnels, membership websites, auto responders, efficient way to run a business. What I realized was hosting, CDN networks, affiliate tracking systems. that we could do much, much better. So, I began And so essentially, FusionHQ provides all of those designing what would be the perfect tool for me, combined into one integrated system. The advan- as a marketer, to speed up the process of getting tage for the marketer is that you don’t need to have projects to launch, give me the flexibility during programmers to install scripts and patch different the launch to improve conversions, to do split testscripts together. It came about after working on a ing and then post launch, to help better manage the variety of different projects, such as for example new customers.

WP Mage. With WP Mage we needed one script that

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Greg: Makes good sense, especially for people who don’t necessarily have dedicated developers on their team, just to simplify all those different processes - and even cut down the costs of the number of tools that you need to buy is a great win.

With FusionHQ obviously you must get access to some great data of what is working and what is not. So you would see some good trends when it comes to things like sales trends. With up-sells and down-sells, what learnings have you been able to take away in that space, as far as when they work and when not to use them?

Leon: A lot of my understanding on this comes not just from FusionHQ, but from a variety of top marketers who I am now lucky enough to call my personal friends. We sit down and discuss the data – the real data, not the numbers people put on their sales pages, but the numbers no one else gets to see.

So from my perspective, the upsell, down-sell process is something that I think is heavily over done by many amateur marketers, and is often misused or abused.

What I see actually working is a process that it is designed to add additional value to the customer at each stage in that process. One of the things that I see doesn’t work is, let’s say on your squeeze page you say, “This is the best thing since sliced bread. This will give you absolutely everything you need to know about AdWords”. So, somebody goes in and then on the OTO there is an offer for let’s say 97 dollars, and again the sales copy promises everything you need to know about AdWords that we did not tell you in the opt in

product. Then in the upsell the offer is to join my coaching program and I will teach you the ‘real’ secrets about AdWords. There is an integrity issue there.

thing on hypnosis later. But do it in an email follow up, rather than using an OTO process.

Greg: That makes good sense. I do a lot of conversion optimization It is like - you just told me that ev- on big eCommerce stores these erything I needed was in this prod- days and one of the trends that uct I just bought, so now you’re I’ve noticed is that there in now trying to tell me that the product less and less up-selling going on in that I just bought isn’t actually the cart. For nearly all of the big that great, because now I need to eCommerce stores when there are buy the product that you’re now products in the cart they are more trying to sell me. So that’s one focussed on getting the checkout mistake that many marketers are to go through than adding indimaking. vidual additional steps that can potentially lose the sale.

The other big mistake is to start offering products that are just The exception to the rule is when completely unconnected or irrele- you can do the up-sells etc after vant – so for example, if I’m selling checkout, if it has already remema product EFT, which is a natural bered the cart details. That sort therapies technique, maybe I sell of model I believe is brilliant. a course or a training program on EFT, and then I’ll have an up-sell to sell a hypnosis product. Now the process is not irrelevant, it is another natural therapies technique, but it is not connected to EFT directly. So, now I’ve started going off on a different tangent.

So, if somebody is interested in EFT I should be selling them information or services around EFT. I know with myself when I’m deI think the trick to making OTO’s signing checkout processes I’m up-sells, down-sells etc work well trying to cut it down to as few is trying to find this balance point steps as possible really to maxiwhere we can find products that mise the percentage of people offer additional value that ex- that are checking out. Because pands on the original offer. I’m you see some people’s checkout not suggesting don’t offer coach- processes and they are losing at ing programmes, or don’t offer least 50 percent or more of their DVD training, but just make sure sales just in the checkout process. that you don’t de-value what So, it really is a key area, and a you’ve just sold because that re- very easy area to double a busially annoys people. Also try not ness. to go and send the customer on a completely different tangent. Leon: The important thing here to There’s nothing wrong in taking remember is to test everything. that list and offering them some- One of the most important

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functions inside FusionHQ is the way we designed the up-sell, down-sell, sales process to be displayed as a flow chart. You don’t just see the actual process, you also see the statistics. When you do an A/B split test, you can see exactly how many people see each of the pages, where they go, and you can see this in real time. So you can actually watch what is happening inside your sales funnel. You can see very quickly if people are buying, dropping out, giving up, and generally see what’s working and what’s not.

FusionHQ Process Flow

Some niches are more tolerant than to these processes than others. Even as an experienced marketer we can often guess what we think will happen, but the reality is that I’ve found I don’t know anybody who can guess correctly a hundred percent of the time. We are very shocked sometimes at the results in terms of what is working, and what isn’t working.

But to get the best conversions, and to get the best customer value, I can’t recommend this kind of visual split testing enough where you can really track the actual flow, or the process that people are going through, at a quick glance.

More importantly, if we look at other statistical studies, or tests that have been done, we find that the reason to capture the first name is to increase the conversions and to increase the open rates on the email. If you use the first name of somebody in the subject line of the email, it can actually increase the number of email opens. If you use the first name in the email, it is likely to increase the click-through rates. If you pass the first name over to display in the sales letter it can increase sales conversions.

And of course if somebody is not willing to enter the first name in the first place the chances are they won’t be willing to enter their credit card details later anyway. So, the first thing I’d say about email marketing is, for me it is still about capturing both the first name and the email address – not just trying to grab the largest list possible.

The reality is we’re not trying to build the largest list - we’re trying to make the most amount of sales.

So, we really want to be thinking long term - how does that list convert, how can we increase open rates and increase the click-through rates. We can’t do that if all we have is their first email address.

I’m also a big fan of simplicity. I love text only emails, simply because they have a higher deliverability and read rate. The challenge is that more and more people are reading their emails on their phones, so keeping emails to a minimum, or should I say a maximum character width of around about 50 characters per line and keeping them text based only will increase the number of people who actually read them.

Now, I know myself, if I get an email that comes in Greg: Agreed, that is very powerful. on my phone and it is HTML formatted and it doesn’t really show on the phone properly, I can’t read it Following on from the checkout is the follow up, or easily, I am just going to delete it. If it is text only sales funnel design - you’ve obviously done a lot in and I can read it, then I can decide if it is of value. that space yourselves. What are your thoughts on If so then I’ll go back to my computer later and acbest practice in terms of email marketing for the tually process that email properly. So, simplicity in type and timings of follow up? emails I would suggest is critical.

Leon: There is a couple of things that I’d suggest around email marketing. The first is I see a horrible trend of people capturing email only, and not capturing the first name. I know the logic behind this is to increase the number of opt-ins, which it does do, but what I tend to see happening is that it is also decreasing the quality of the actual list.

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Greg: What about frequency? Is there a good rule of thumb you like to work with yourself, with your own business marketing?

Leon: What I have found very effective is when you create a new list is to begin by building a relationship with your subscribers and get them wanting to

open your emails. One of the most effective ways to do this is to create the first, for example, seven emails as an email course. By doing this you increase the value of the emails that you are sending, and you also create the expectation in the subscriber to look for your emails. They actively want to find your emails and open them.

And I think this makes a big difference.

For example, if you just give away a PDF when somebody opts in – they opt in, they get their PDF and they’re all happy. Suddenly you start sending them a bunch of other emails. They’re not expecting them, and they’re certainly not actively looking for them. So if we can train people to actually look for our emails, to open our emails and to associate them with high value content then the long term relationship is established and the long term conversion rates will increase. So that is one of the first things I would suggest to people.

Create at least a five part, if not seven part auto responder course that is high value.

deliver high value content and not make every email an offer.

The frequency is kept reasonably regular, but not overkill. So we’re looking at perhaps one email a week – maybe two emails a week, depending on the niche. So what we’re not flooding the inbox every single day, but we are keeping in regular contact with that person so they don’t forget who we are.

The first method may get results, but personally I am a big fan of the second.

Greg: If we move on to membership sites, which is something that we spoke about before with the business model. There are multiple different ways of going about it. Have you found that the micro continuity model, meaning that you sell it and it lasts for a certain period of time, whether it is After that there are two schools three months, six months or that of thinking. The first is to send as sort of thing, converts better than many offers to your list as possi- open-ended subscriptions, where ble. Basically swamp them so they it is like X dollars per month open either just put you into their spam ended? What are your thoughts on folder or unsubscribe. There are winning membership site design/ quite a lot of top name market- model? ers that subscribe to this approach where essentially they’re in the Leon: I love micro continuity for email harvesting business and several reasons. To answer that dithey just harvest as many emails rect question, do I see it increasso they can just butcher them to ing conversions – the answer is, death. not really. I don’t see it increasing conversions. But what I do see is it The second approach is much increasing lifetime value. more along the lines of top marketers, such as, for example, Mark I do believe there is more money Ling. This approach continues to to be made from micro continuity

and of course there is a lot less work involved. The generally accepted average customer retention rate is about three to four months on a normal membership website. People simply get bored of them. There is no end to it, so they cancel.

Now, with micro continuity after 3-4 modules you know that the course will be completed in the next one or two months, or the next one to two weeks. You can now get the sense of completion, you also don’t have to worry about having to cancel that subscription – you know it is going to cancel automatically. And people are generally lazy. Even if they’re not active in the course, because they know there is an end to the subscription they are more inclined just to let it end on its own rather than take the effort to go in and manually cancel the subscription, or contact customer support.

So what we are actually doing is increasing the average customer lifetime from three to four months, up to more like four to five months. This makes it a great way to increase our average retention rate. Also what we do not have to do is constantly come up with new content every single month. This reduces our operational costs on that particular project – and we can ensure the content is concentrated value. If we have to come up with new content each month it often becomes diluted. With micro continuity we make more money, reduce effort and deliver a better product.

Greg: You obviously split test with your software a lot of different landing page designs.

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you find that you have at top of up with images, bullet points, sub mind when you’re designing win- headlines, testimonials etc. Also use ning landing pages for conversion? quite a lot of white space, to make sure that different design elements Leon: Simplicity, simplicity, sim- are separate from each other. plicity. That’s definitely what we’ve found best. Now, we’ve spent a lot of If you’ve got an opt-in box maktime branding certain projects and ing sure that the text is not pushed getting them looking really sexy, re- right up close. If you’ve got a headally nice looking Internet Marketing line, make sure you separate the sales funnels where we have a nice headline. If you’ve got images, big banner and cool backgrounds make sure you’ve got space around and tested them against simple the images and they are not pushed white pages. And to be honest white up against the text. pages or plain white content page on a light background converts far Make it very, very easy on the eye, better for us – in just about every basically just keep your options single case. In some case as much clearly visible, so the consumer is as four to nine percent increase in focussed on one objective, whether conversion rates. that is opting in, or buying.

Greg: Yes, that is a very important point - Don’t combine a whole bunch of different priorities. Have one clearly defined primary course of action for the landing page is a very key point. Another thing is really don’t assume anything, split test everything, and keep moving We do put a lot of effort in having forward bumping those conversion a really good product image. If you rates higher and higher. are doing an eBook, for example, make sure you have a sexy looing How can our readers and listeners eBook cover, because that will in- find out more about yourself, or crease your conversions. the FusionHQ products week?

So not only do you reduce the amount of money spent on getting a project launched, and the amount of time taken in set up, but you also increase the amount of money you make by increasing your conversions.

In terms of general page design I’m a big fan of Arial font around size 17, black on white background.

This gives maximum readability. It used to be more like size 14 or 15 pixel font, but people’s resolution on their screens are getting much smaller, so people struggle more to read it. Size 17 is much more legible for more people.

Keep the pages fairly narrow, certainly no more than about 770 pixels wide for text, and break the page

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Leon: We’ve got a special page for your readers, where they get a special offer from our normal sales page. All they need to do to is go to http://www.fusionhq.com/imm.

Greg: Thank you very much Leon for sharing these valuable insights.

You’ve obviously got a lot of experience in the Internet Marketing and development business space and I think people will be able to take a lot of good takeaways away from that.

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SEO

THE NEW COMMANDMENTS OF SEO AFTER GOOGLE PENGUIN

By Robin Gupta

Google Penguin, like Panda before it, has made something of a splash in the world of SEO (there’s a pun there somewhere…) and has left a lot of webmasters and bloggers wondering what the best way to bring attention to their sites is now that Google have seemingly changed all the rules again – if indeed there still is one.

There are indeed still some hard and fast rules to SEO, we just need to adjust them a little in light of these recent developments. With that in mind, here are the new ‘commandments’ of SEO. Follow these and you shouldn’t go far wrong.

Build Quality Links Over High Quantities of Links Having a hundred thousand links isn’t going to cut it and if these are from the wrong sources then it will in fact just get your site penalized by Google.

What’s much better is that you have a smaller number of inbound links from far more relevant and high authority sources. This looks more natural and less like spamming and it ensures that your site looks like a high quality one. Now would be a good time to try and delete any links coming in from low quality or spammy sites.

Guest Posts Are the New Link Exchanges With this being the case getting hundreds of links by emailing random websites and asking to swap is no longer very effective and the same can also be said for article submissions to a degree. As such swapping guest posts is now a more valuable strategy than ever and one you should certainly look into if you haven’t already.

Write High Quality Content Consistently This quantity over quality rule should also apply equally to your content and one of the things that Cutts specifically said that Penguin would aim to cut down on was bad quality and spun content that doesn’t make any sense. Make sure that you don’t have any of that on your site and that yours is all

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original and the kind of thing that people would want to read.

Avoid Making Enemies With bad links now being such a serious crime, it’s easier than ever for a competitor to attack your website by getting someone to get hundreds of bad quality links pointing to your site. That’s called ‘negative SEO’ and it’s a bigger problem now than ever before. For this reason you should avoid making enemies and try to network with competitors rather than just knocking them off the top spot like some sort of bounty hunter.

Use Rich Snippets It seems that when Google closes a window they open a door, and have in this instance provided webmasters and bloggers who have been paying attention with a new and highly effective way to increase their visibility on the SERPS – by using authorship schemas in order to link your Google Plus page to your articles and have your profile picture come up next to your links. Google rich snippets can also be useful in other ways too – for instance by getting reviews/prices etc. to show with your listing rather than just a random snippet of text.

Avoid Over Optimization in General Spammy link building and spun content have taken the biggest hit when it comes to recent updates, but this is not the only form of ‘over optimization’ out there. Other culprits include keyword stuffing, and that means in file names too. Basically practice SEO in moderation but focus on putting the reader and the content first.

Build a Brand Having a brand that you can build into something recognizable over time is a very good strategy and one that Google has been recommending themselves. Most recently this has applied to exact name domains which are losing power compared to URLs that use real brands (and recognizable ones in particular).

Use Social Networking Mark Zuckerberg was right – the internet is becoming more social and Google clearly knows this. Social cues are great indicators of authority and this is something that will be factoring more and more into Google’s algorithms. That and it’s also just a good way to get yourself out there, market and network.

Make Link Bait Link bait means that you make content that is so good that people want to share it thus doing your promotion and your link building for you. This was one of the top tips that Cutts himself shared saying simply ‘make it cool’.

Don’t Rely Solely on SEO At the same time these last two points help you to become slightly less dependent on SEO – use it yes, but don’t have it as your sole way of driving traffic to your pages. If Google Penguin has shown us one thing it’s that we can’t rely on the ‘rules’ of SEO to remain constant and we can see our rankings drop quickly with little warning. In other words then you need a backup contingency plan, and you need other ways to bring in the traffic should your rankings dip unexpectedly.

Robin Gupta

is an SEO expert authority who also has strong knowledge of online business. He writes experts blogs on online business and SEO. Robin runs an SEO Agency at www.robingupta.co

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COPYWRITING

THE 9 GOLDEN RULES FOR PRODUCING “SEXY” COPY EVERY TIME

By Steve Plummer We all want sexy, right?

So I thought I’d run through 9 golden rules for getting that “sexy” look in your ads or web pages and give you some tips to make your copy as sexy, eye catching and attractive as possible.

Here we go…

Let’s talk about sex… or more specifically about how to be sexy… hmmm treading on thin ice here… sexy in a marketing sense!!!

My trusty Oxford Dictionary defines “sexy” as: “attractive or stimulating, exciting, appealing”. Pretty much sums up, don’t you reckon how we want our copy to look?

Making Your Copy Sexy Golden Rule #1: Know Your Media… offline has different rules to online. For instance in terms of typeface to use, serif typefaces like Times New Roman is safe for offline (because it looks like newsprint which we are conditioned to reading) and sans serif ones like Arial for online.

“Serif” merely means the little “feet” on the ends of each character.

Making Your Copy Sexy Golden Rule #2: Know Your Colours… Subtle but oh so important is the colour(s) you choose for your banner, website or ad and the overall look and feel the colours convey. The colours must be congruent with your market, your product and the message you want to portray. Again, you get this wrong and prospects turn the page or click off in a hurry. Very unsexy.

You see I’ve been getting a number of questions of late about how to be more sexy… or how to be atIf you asked them why chances are they can’t extractive, stimulating, exciting and appealing (keep plain it… “I just didn’t like it” is probably all they it clean here, we’re talking about marketing!). will say. Colour will have a lot to do with it.

There is a saying, “Good copy is like pornography, hard to define but you know it when you see it”. It’s the same with the look and feel for ads, sales letters and web pages… you just know when something looks right and appeals, don’t you?

With all marketing, it is test and measure and what works well for one market, may not hold true for another. That being said there are certain principles which hold true and if you stick to, chances are your copy will fall into the sexy rather than ugly and unappealing category.

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As a general rule I avoid black (except with body copy) because it’s a negative colour. Here’s a quick rundown of the other main colours and what messages they convey: Red – grabs attention and signifies action and movement (why it’s used a lot on call to action buttons) Green – calming colour of growth, nature and harmony Yellow – optimism, happiness and stability Purple – prosperity and prestige

Blue – trust, wisdom and loyalty Grey – solid, serious, practical White – purity, cleanliness and strength

Making Your Copy Sexy Golden Rule #7: Short is Sexy… size does matter. Short sentences, short paragraphs make it easy to read.

Note: a few years ago, for headlines, red was all the rage. Now, with the web maturing as a marketplace trusting blue is being used more and more.

Also varying the length of sentences keeps it interesting.

Making Your Copy Sexy Golden Rule #3: Make it Easy to Read… it might be creative but choosing different fonts can make it VERY difficult to read and even confuse prospects, so stick to the tried and true. See, it just becomes annoying if there are too many fonts your market isn’t used to. It’s about conveying a sales message not about being creative per se, so stick to what works.

A short one.

Follow it up with a longer one because it gives a certain rhythm to your copy.

See?

Making Your Copy Sexy Golden Rule #8: Visuals are Sexy… if you are going to include photos, follow these two guidelines: Making Your Copy Sexy Golden Rule #4: Words 1. Always have a caption… we are visual creasell, logos don’t… so NEVER put your logo big and tures and people’s eyes are automatically drawn bold at the top. If you have to include it, make it to photos so never miss the opportunity to “sell” small and at the bottom of the letter or ad. with a powerful caption 2. Offline – pictures should be no more than ¼ of Making Your Copy Sexy Golden Rule #5: AVOID USyour ad space ING BLOCK CAPITALS IN ENTIRE SENTENCES… Again, we’re conditioned to reading with capitals at the Making Your Copy Sexy Golden Rule #9: Get Atstart of sentences and for proper nouns. When we tention… make your headlines big and bold enough read our eyes recognise letter shape from the up- for the casual glancer (which is how we all read!) per half of each letter. to notice your message. It’s always a balancing act… too big and it looks silly… too small and they USING ALL CAPITALS GETS AWAY FROM THE NATURAL won’t see it. Make the headline large enough to EASE OF READING, SO WHY DO SOMETHING LIKELY give force to your message.

TO DECREASE RESPONSE? See, it gets pretty darned annoying! A word or phrase here or there can work Ok, there you go 9 Golden Rules for Making Your well, but avoid all capitals but DO capitalise each Copy Sexy! major word of your headline.

Are you feeling sexier… in a marketing sense? Ok, Making Your Copy Sexy Golden Rule #6: The Rule it might NOT be time for a cold shower but apply of One… each marketing piece should have only one these rules to your next promotion and watch your purpose. So each web page should do one thing: results fly. either get them to opt-in OR buy. An ad is either lead generation OR selling. Remember the age old mantra, a confused buyer simply won’t buy.

Sexy Steve Plummer So don’t confuse them with multiple things they could do make it easy. (Ok, this isn’t simply a setting out thing, but having more than one purpose can make your ad/website too “busy” or confusing and therefore hard to read so it needs to be mentioned here).

is the personal copywriter for Australia’s “Millionaire Maker” Mal Emery. Steve’s marketing and writing savvy have resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra sales for many happy clients. Follow Steve’s blog at steveplummeronline.com

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E-MAIL MARKETING

HOW TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST WITHOUT SPENDING A CENT

By Scott Bywater When you read it, you’ll discover: • How advertising laws are established • The single most important thing you need to know about how you should treat your advertising if you want it to be profitable • What sort of ads you should If you’ve got an email list (even a look at to work out what really small one) here’s a simple stratworks egy you can use to boost your • Should you use pictures numbers fast, by using referrals. in your advertising? Do colour All you need to do is create a litpictures pay better than black tle bonus you can give away, and and white? Discover the truth then send an email out that reads ad reps won’t tell you something like this...

• How to lessen the cost per customer • How to answer any quesSUBJECT: A Free Gift if You’ll Help tion about advertising your Me Out product or service cheaply, quickly and finally.

Hi NAME, • And much, much, much more I want to send you a free gift that’ll help you create There’s just one catch.

“Awesome Ads” and get more customers.

But it won’t cost you a cent, I promise.

You can get it by clicking here To find out all about it...

Here’s what David Ogilvy, the father of Modern click here advertising, has to say about it: Your friend, “Nobody should be allowed to have anything to do with Scott Bywater Advertising until he has read this book (Scientific Advertising) seven times. It’s changed the This email would then direct course of my life” readers to a page like this:

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http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/new/referral.php

Let’s just take a moment to dissect this page and what makes it work...

1. Free Gift that’s valuable to the target market: you are offering something, so you need to give something away that’s valuable in exchange.

This book is incredible and you’ll notice I also go on to sell the book with proof elements (David Ogilvy said everyone should read it seven times) and teaser bullets.

Contrary to popular belief, you actually need to sell “free” almost as hard as you need to sell paid. We are so bombarded with information these days,

that you need to sell why your Suite 21, Seabridge House reader should give time to 377 Kent Street what you’re offering.

Sydney NSW 2000 Australia 2. Asks for a minimal commitment: all I am asking for P.S. John, while you’re there... here is two names, in exchange you’ll be able to join my “Copyfor some life-changing infor- writing Selling Secrets” Newsletmation that almost everyone ter for Free like Simon did! in business would receive ex- Just visit: http://www.copywritcellent value for. ingthatsells.com.au

Here’s the email that automatically gets sent to those who get referred: Here’s the email that gets sent to the referrer:

So even if you had just 500 people on your list...

Hi John,

So that’d make those 15 new subscribers worth $30 a pop.

Simon Peters recently came across my website: http://www. copywritingthatsells.com.au that helps people put thousands of dollars into their bank account through powerful marketing and advertising strategies.

Hey Simon,

And could get 3% (15 people) to refer 2 of their friends.

That’s 30 new people who are hearing about you.

If half of those sign up, that’s 15 new subscribers.

I don’t know about you, but I’d be willing to pay double for a referred lead than I would for a cold lead...

Or $450.

Here’s the special link to the famous ‘Scientific Advertising’ Book That’s 90c for everyone on your you asked for! email list.

You can view the report by going Not bad for sending an email. clicking here: Simon Peters referred you and Particularly since you’ve now got thought you might like to know INSERT LINK this system for life. how to make more money through maximising the impact of your I hope you get as much as I did Build that list up to 5,000 and advertising too. out of reading this book, Simon. that $450 worth of leads Becomes $4,500.00 worth of If you go to http://www.copy- Warmly, leads. writingthatsells.com.au you’ll get instant access to my special Scott Bywater For free... just by leveraging on report “7 ways to increase your www.copywritingthatsells.com. your existing assets. turnover, and make your business au profits skyrocket - no matter Scott Bywater what the state of the economy” Do you want to learn the easiest (valued at $39.95 - Yours FREE!) Let’s look at the power of this way to get more customers fast?

Go to: http://www.copywrit- system.

Leading advertising ingthatsells.com.au for all the copywriter, Scott details.

New leads can be expensive.

Bywater, has just Warmly, Scott Bywater Copywriting That Sells

I pay about $15 to get someone on my email list.

completed a set of marketing and advertising “cheatsheets” to make your online marketing work more effectively. Download it for free by visiting www.adcheatsheets. com/imag

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EXPERT OPINION

THE END OF “GURU-DOM”

By Spike Humer I’m not a “guru”—never hoped to be, never wanted to be—never will be.

In its “formal” sense, the term “guru” has been defined as: • a preceptor giving personal religious instruction • an intellectual or spiritual guide or leader • a person who counsels or advises; a mentor • a leader in a particular field The “formal” or historical sense of a “guru” as a preceptor, guide, advisor, mentor, or leader I can live with; it’s the current implications and use and overuse of the term I choose to live without.

of mentors, a wide-array of personal and professional advisors, and learned from and have been associated with tons of people I respect, love, and admire, I’ve yet to find the one person who knows it all, has-it-all, and “is-it-all”—no matter the field of expertise or experience.

Yep, I’ve met plenty of experts, dozens and dozens of people with more knowledge, experience, and expertise than me. I have a high regard for many, if not most of them. I appreciate their information, I respect their accomplishments, and love to learn from their experience and expertise but at the end-of-the-day, it comes down to this: knowledge is valuable, but wisdom is priceless.

In the now “common” or prevailing sense of the word, “guru” has been used by clever marketers, slick salespeople, prodigious product-sellers, and sometimes hucksters or charlatans as a way to say “I know way more than you so you should listen to me, obey me, follow me, or want to be like me” without hesitation or reservation. It’s the old “you too can be just like me if only you do what I have done (and I’ll sell you the product, formula, or secret to show you how—buy now).”

Bullshit! (please forgive my bluntness) People speak of “gurus” in business, relationships, life, and in spirituality as if they alone are “the lone keeper of the secrets” and are the unquestionable authorities on how to live, love, be, and do in every area of life, love, bliss, or business. To me, a guru is a teacher and a conveyor and purveyor of knowledge, a true guru understands the gift is in the message and not the messenger.

I’ve been a “student” as far back as I can remember; I’ve been in business for a long time (30 years plus), and been alive a lot longer (well, not that much longer). While I’ve had a significant number

Knowledge and information may come from “with-out”; wisdom comes from “within”.

My aim here isn’t to attack any “sage on the stage” or any “prophet in a package”. My message is intended for you to realize, remember, and reclaim your personal power and your ability to recognize your own unique gifts, treasures, and talents to do, be, and have what it is you want through your own

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innate greatness and unique abilities. Any message is meaningless unless you and you alone do what needs to be done, the best way you know or learn how to do regardless of the messenger. To expect, demand of or blindly defer to a “guru” is a surrender of your own power and the abandonment of the potential alchemy of your unique skill and spirit.

Truth be told, I make my living as a ‘teacher”, advisor, speaker, and consultant; but as anyone knows who has been to one of my programs I make a critical distinction—it’s never about how great I am (or not) as a presenter or mentor, it’s about how great they (the participants) can be and will be in-part because of what I share but most importantly what they can and will do as a result of their experience in our collaborative relationship and our time invested together.

I’ve been blessed by my opportunities to have worked with and learned from some of the greatest minds and experts on the planet—for that, I’m forever grateful. But my success (or limitations thereof) is not a reflection of the “gurus” or guides or as

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a sole result of what they shared—it comes down to what I do, did, or didn’t with that experience and the wisdom I’ve gained from what I apply.

Your success is a direct result of not just what you learn, and certainly not about who you learn it from; it’s about what you do. But before you can truly learn you must question—is what I say, or whatever anyone else professes, confesses, or conveys “true for you”—that is the beginning of wisdom in my humble opinion as a “non-guru”. Take what is useful, apply it the best way you see fit, and leave the rest.

Spike Humer For 25 years, Spike Humer has been at the forefront of formulating innovative business growth and explosive marketing strategies for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and multimillion dollar organizations.

As an entrepreneurial advisor, small-business consultant, and turnaround expert Spike ranks among the world’s greatest thought-leaders and result producing advisors.

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SHOPPING CART

DO YOUR USERS HAVE SHOPPING CART ABANDONMENT ISSUES?

By Sherice Jacob

Everyone loves a good deal, and shopping comparison and coupon sites have made it easier than ever.

If you’re like most people, the minute you see a better deal on the item you wanted to buy, you effectively leave your shopping cart abandoned in the middle of the digital aisle. The infographic below explains more in detail which particular abandonment issues are causing your users to leave your site – and how much it could be costing you.

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Even though it’s clear that more than 75% of your users are leaving your site to go coupon-hunting or comparison shopping, you can still reel them back in. Here’s how:

Amazon.com’s lead and let them know that more is on the way. Even better: let them know approximately when you’re due to get more of the product, if at all.

• Offer a coupon code directly on your site.

Fill it in for customers once they add an item to the cart, saving them from searching for it themselves. Remind them of how much they’ve saved today versus the regular retail price, once they add the item to their cart.

• Use Social Proof and Competitive Shopping – It’s a given that everyone wants a bargain, but it’s even stronger when you can show the social proof behind it. If 59 People would Recommend This to a Friend, there must be something great about it! You can even tie this tactic in with a bit of competitive shopping, by letting your customers know how many other people are shopping online right now too. Nobody wants to let a good deal slip through their fingers, and as a marketer, you can capitalize on this “fear of a missed opportunity.”

• Don’t hide your Return/Refund policy. Make it absolutely clear how customers can return an item for a replacement or a refund and let them know approximately how long it will take. Much of the shopper’s decision to return to your site after they’ve purchased is based on after-sales service.

• Show How Many are Left. Being able to include real-time inventory updates can help prevent customers from abandoning their cart – particularly if there’s an in-demand item that’s running out quickly. If you’re almost out, follow

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Sheriec Jacob

creates beautiful, high-converting landing pages, in addition to designing blogs and writing compelling content. Learn more at iElectrify or @sherice on Twitter.

This article is originally published on KISSmetrics.

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COPYWRITING

HOW TO TURN BORING FACTS INTO EXCITING BENEFITS

By Pete Godfrey I often get asked about the features of the product.

Especially features of a technical nature.“Surely you’ve got to mention the features, not just the benefits?” they ask.

And my answer is YES, of course you do.

You need to explain the features of your product so your customers know what they are actually getting. But you do it in an exciting way. You let them know what these features mean to them (benefits) and what they’ll feel about experiencing these benefits.

But the REAL question these people are asking is: “How do I stop getting bogged down in the copy when I have to mention a lot of technical stuff?”

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That’s the real question they finally get to asking.

That’s what they really want to know.

And it’s a damn good question too. That’s why I spend time on this at my Copywriting Intensives; because it’s an important concept to understand.

But for now, here’s something to keep in mind.

When you read the copy out loud, you’ll find there are certain parts of your letter that slow down, that lose the “Greased Slide” effect.

Many times this is where you’ve introduced your technical info, and your fast paced copy comes to a screeching halt.

So here’s a tip…

Watch out for Technical jargon: Just because it’s technical, doesn’t mean it has to be boring. You have to rewrite in everyday English.

writing Intensives. (It’s these small but significant changes that make the difference between okay copy and the world-class copy that brings in a truckload of money. It’s one of the reasons I get paid the BIG bucks.)

Put it all together and I have turned what could have been a dull moment in the copy, into a benefit filled experience.

So what’s the lesson here?

Strive for instant clarity in your copy.

Strive to make clear what the technical stuff means to the prospect.

Here’s an example so you get the idea…

FEATURES: Widget is small (5cms by 3cms), Widget is light (20 grams) COPY: Just 5cms by 3cms, and weighing only 20 grams, this handy lightweight widget fits snugly in your pocket.

ANALYSES: There’s a lot going on in this one sentence.

• I’ve let them know the features: 5cms by 3cms, 20 grams • I’ve used powerful adjectives: Just, Handy, Lightweight • I’ve used powerful Verbs: Fits, Snugly (Yes I know “snugly” is an adverb and I try and stick clear of them. But it fits here.)

• I’ve painted a picture in my prospect’s mind: Fits snugly in your pocket. This makes it instantly identifiable… the prospect gets instant clarity. He can see it!

• It’s active: I’m not saying: this handy lightweight widget would fit snugly in your pocket.

No, that’s passive writing and doesn’t engage the reader. I say: this handy lightweight widget fits snugly in your pocket. This makes it happening now, in the present, as if the prospect already possesses the Widget. It’s assuming the sale, another BIG subject I cover at my Copy-

P.S. One mistake I see all the time in copy is the lack of features. It’s like the copywriter is so focused on benefits, so focused on what the features mean to the prospect, he or she forgets to mention the damn features.

BIG mistake.

If it’s a 38-page book you’ve got to tell them. If it’s a downloadable product you’ve got to tell them. If you’re selling a widget then you’ve got to let them know the size of the thing. Sure, you turn features into benefits; that’s copywriting 101. Just don’t forget to mention the features in your excitement to get all the benefits down.

Pete Godfrey With more than a decade of experience in the marketing arena, Pete Godfrey, AKA “The Wizard of Words”, has developed a keen eye as to what it takes to succeed in business. As one of Australia’s most successful and highest paid copywriters/ sale strategists, Pete’s client list contains many of the world’s savviest entrepreneurs including Mal Emery, Greg Milner, Pat Mesiti and many others.

To get to know Pete better and see how you can profit from his hard-won copywriting advice go to http:// special.petegodfrey.com/blueprint and grab his new FREE report “Business Profits Blueprint: How to Profit in The New Economy”. Valued at a very real $97, it’s yours FREE for a limited time.

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INFOGRAPHICS

AMAZON VS THE WORLD AN INFOGRAPHIC

By Nii Ahene Amazon has come a long way from *just* being the Check out the infographic (A CPC Strategy First!) world’s largest bookseller. This year alone the com- below to see where Amazon is challenging rivals for pany has launched three new products or service marketshare in the consumer and enterprise spaces. offerings that challenge the market dominance of an established player.

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Nii Ahene

Nii is COO of CPC Strategy, a shopping feed management agency and is responsible for day-to-day business operations and longterm financial, tactical and strategic planning for the company.

He has been with CPC Strategy since January of 2007. Prior to working with CPC Strategy, Nii was a product manager at eBay working on algorithmic merchandising and reviews and guides.

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