april 2013
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GROWING FROM $25M TO $100M
Alexi Neocleous >> THE ORIGINAL AND BEST INTERNET MARKETING MAGAZINE DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR THE IPAD, KINDLE FIRE, ANDROID AND THE WEB
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INTERNET UPDATE
THE
STATE OF THE INTERNET
In this section of Internet Marketing Magazine our editor Greg Cassar cover’s the facts and provides expert commentary on what are the big plays that have recently happened online and how they affect you. Inactive Emails Going Rotten Email deliverability is getting more and more difficult in 2013 as Email Service Providers (ESP’s) get smarter and smarter technology. I remember when first starting off in Internet Marketing 8-10 years ago the whole focus was on ‘you need to have a big list’… well that is no longer the case. A big list certainly helps with monetisation, but what is more important in 2013 and beyond is an active and responsive list.
Inactive emails are now like food pushed to the back of the pantry – they are great when you bought the food but over time when neglected can go rotten. As an email list owner you now need to actively segment off your list’s inactive’s and try to re-engage these people with high value irresistible free content. If you still don’t get any activity then the best course of action is to delete those contacts. There is no point of a full pantry where you can’t eat most of it and it’s affecting the health of the other food.
Email service providers such as Hotmail are changing their algorithms to review ‘opens and clicks’. If a hotmail user hasn’t opened an email or clicked a Adwords Now Allowing You To Bid on Trademarked link from you in 4 months then it is more likely that Terms your messages will now go to the spam folder, which is not where you want them to go. In certain parts of the world such as China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, South I’ve used Hotmail in this example, but all ESP’s are Korea, and Brazil in recent years you have not been heading this way. able to bid on Trademarked terms such as many brand names within Google Adwords. As of 23rd of April 2013 that will change so that keywords that were restricted as a result of a trademark complaint and investigation will no longer be restricted in the affected regions. Google states that the reason for this change is “Google’s goal is to provide our users with the most relevant information, whether from search results or advertisements, and we believe users benefit from having more choice. Our policy aims to balance the interests of users, advertisers, and trademark owners, so we will continue to investigate trademark complaints concerning use of trademarks in ad text.” This is great news, especially for industries where
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one brand name is also the term that describes an industry eg. Ugg Boot, as it enables more competition to advertise rather than one advertiser dominating a market place.
I believe Google will build an authority eCommerce marketplace site like Amazon or eBay in the near future, but time will tell.
Amazon Going Social Same Day Delivery… But Not From Who You Would Expect Amazon has recently announced the acquisition of social reading service Goodreads for an undisclosed figure. Goodreads boasts over 16 million users and has catalogued more than 360 million books, adding 22 million each month. Goodreads is a social community for book lovers to share what books they’ve enjoyed and also to discover new books that they have a high probability of liking based off the previous books they’ve liked.
When you think of same day eCommerce delivery, most likely Amazon, eBay and Walmart come to mind. But the latest player in this space is not who you would necessarily think of in the same day delivery space – Google. Google is testing a same-day delivery service called Google Shopping Express.
Amazon would have several motives with this move. 1. It just acquired an all ready thriving social network of people who are it’s 100% target market 2. It can very quickly and easily be integrated with Kindle as Goodreads doesn’t currently have an eReader of choice. 3. This type of social integration could give Amazon a major advantage over competition esellers like Apple, who have no social components to their product offerings.
The search engine giant put out a call for consumer “testers” for the service in the San Francisco Bay area, and also announced that the following large national e-retailers are taking part: Staples, Target, Toys ‘R’ Us, Walgreen Co. and several other Internet Retailers and local San Francisco merchants. “We’re still working out our long-term pricing plan but early testers will get six months of free, unlimited same-day delivery,” advised Tom Fallows, product management director, Google Shopping Express This is an interesting play from Google who also now has its Google Trusted Stores program. eCommerce seems to be a major part of their strategy moving forwards as consumers purchasing on line has become main stream in recent years.
Amazon will treat Goodreads similar to it’s acquisition of Zappos where it remains its own brand and maintains its own culture.
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We have started work on developing a new version of the Internet Marketing Magazine ‘Google If you haven’t got access to the member’s area Play’ store app as the old one is out of date and please feel free to do at http://internetmarket- we have no easy way of updating it. We expect ingmag.net/become-member/ (it’s free). This this update to be 2-3 months off and will let you month’s complete audio interview with Alexi Neo- know when it goes live. cleous has now been added. It has lots of learning’s in it that were not included in the magazine, Wishing you the best of success online, so be sure to check it out. From the Desk of the Editor
A special thanks to those who have left reviews Regards, in the apple platforms as it really helps us out. If you are getting good value from Internet Marketing Magazine and you can spare 1 minute of your time to click this link to give us a quick honest Greg Cassar review that would be greatly appreciated (click Internet Marketing Strategist & Editor ‘view in iTunes’ then scroll down and click ‘write Internet Marketing Magazine a review’, thanks :).
GregCassar
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The 2 fatal mistakes amateurs make when putting together an advertising campaign How to make sure your customers never forget about you (Plus - the
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EXPERT INTERVIEW
ALEXI NEOCLEOUS DIRECT RESPONSE KEYS FOR
GROWING FROM $25M TO $100M An Interview by Internet Marketing Strategist Greg Cassar Alexi Neocleous is one of the leading direct response freelance copywriters in the world. Alexi is a profit strategist of the very highest magnitude, having driven many multiple millions of dollars in sales for his high-end client base. Alexi is the author of some of the most well received advertising and marketing courses in the industry; titles, which include, “Advertising Secrets”, “The Three Minute Ad Formula”, which he co-authored with Scott Bywater and the “Kaizen Marketing System”. Alexi, for those who have not come across your work before. Can you please describe who is Alexi Neocleous?
get him as a client, but truth- in my mind now in terms of how fully I was scared – he was very strongly I believe it. famous. And then we started doing some stuff together and I realised quite early on that I had Alexi: The quick version is, first some skill to help business ownand foremost I do lots of direct ers, both large and small. Then response copywriting - long copy it went on from there, and since sales letters, video sales letters, then we’ve worked with hundreds product launches and quite elab- of clients. We’ve increased sales orate direct response marketing by certainly tens or hundreds of campaigns. Secondly, I’m also a millions, its hard to say for sure. strategist. In terms of who I am, I fell into this work probably 12, 13 years ago. One of the richest men in the world at the time was Rene Rivkin. I got it in to my mind one day that I wanted to work with him and I just kept sending him ideas about his marketing; how to improve his marketing, why his marketing sucked - and so on and so forth. Until ultimately he just relented and said “Come in. Let’s talk”. It’s quite a funny story because at the time I had no other clients, I had no track record, I had no website, no nothing, and this is one of the richest men of the country who acquiesced. For me at the time it was just an interesting adventure to try and
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Alexi, you have a unique way of looking at High Level Marketing and how it relates to your lessons with the Bow and Arrow.
It’s quite simply this, approach all of your marketing as a scientist – every campaign is an experiment and with every campaign you will get feedback. That Alexi: What I found working with feedback can either be “posimany business owners, both large tive” or “negative”. A positive and small, I’m always intrigued by feedback is where made money. the thinking and behavioural pat- Negative is we lost money. But terns that separates those who both are quite arbitrary and just are plodding along and those that to be treated as feedback. do really, really well. One of the big differences between those Using all this feedback is quite are doing ok, but those that are valuable, because you can redoing spectacular in the tens of align your sights. A metaphor millions and more, is those who that I use is my bow and arrow. A do spectacular have quite an in- few months ago I bought myself a teresting perspective on how to pretty high-end professional bow approach their campaigns. This and arrow. When you get a bow is something I’ve cultivated as a and arrow you need to adjust belief system. It’s quite concrete your sights. I’ve got six level of
sights that I need to calibrate for varying distances. So my top sight is calibrated for 15 metres, the second one for 25 metres and so on. When you start to first shoot your bow and arrow you’ve got a whole bunch of challenges you need to deal with. Firstly, you need to cultivate your technique. Then you need to improve your skill set. Then on top of all that when you’re starting out you need to calibrate the sights.
on a really big winning campaign. All it takes is one big winning campaign to make a stack load of money. This is what separates those who do really well from those that just plod along.
Marketing is very much the same. Whether you’ve got an Internet business, or whether you’ve got a traditional business doing stuff offline, treat every marketing campaign is an experiment. Then you throw traffic at your sales page, or you throw traffic at your ads and you track your response and you see – how many calls did we get? How many converted in to a sale? How many converted in to a repeat buy?
With one of your clients at the moment you’re working with them on a journey from $25m to $100m a year in sales. From a strategic point of view what are the sort of things that you need to focus on to achieve that goal?
Those that plod along are very scared to lose; are very scared to treat each campaign as an experiment. Those that hit out of the park not only do they allocate a fixed amount in budget and say, for this test campaign So what I had to do with mine we’re going to spend X dollars. was, I would stand say ten me- Win, lose or draw we’re going to tres away and I’d line up the top spend X dollars, and no matter sights and I’d shoot the arrow. what happens we’re going to use Then I’d see where the arrow the data to improve next time. lands on the target in relation For them it’s a matter of just to the bullseye. Then I’d shoot balancing their cash flow so they another arrow. And I’d do that can afford to have a succession a couple of times initially, just of losers, so to speak, until they to see if there’s consistency in find a winner. my divergence from the bulls eye. Let’s say for example that Greg: Then run those winners I’m consistently a foot north of along and cut the losers short. the bull’s eye; 30 centimetres above the bullseye consistently. Alexi: Exactly yes. Cutting the That tells me straight away that losers short and running those I need to realign the top sights winners for as long as they’re at least 30 centimetres. winners.
If you treat every single campaign as a test you eventually get to the point where you hit
Alexi: Every business is different. In that client’s case, up until about a month ago the front end was quite solid, we had multiple traffic sources where we were sending millions of visitors over many months, to a landing
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page, or a video sales letter. So in this particular case until a month ago the focus was on what happens after the sale. How did we segment buyers? What do we do with buyers after they’ve purchased? How do our up sell sequences look? What’s our customer service like? But then about a month ago we decided to change the messaging on the front end, partly for compliance reasons. What we’re doing to test is I’m working with the media buyer to try a whole bunch of different banners on the front end. On a fortnightly basis or so I’m sending through a whole bunch of different creative for the banners. The banners that get the biggest click through, they’re the ones that we’re going to turn in to and amend the video sales letter copy and the headline on the landing page. Most people what they do is, they get an idea and they’d say “ok, so this is the idea we’re going to head with our advertising”. I approach it a different way. I said to the guys, “Listen, just forget that. Put that to the side for the moment. Our first step is finding creative that works really well. When we get banners that have got awesome click throughs, our cost per click is very manageable, then we use that to amend the opening and the headline of the video sales letter. This will let us fail faster”. Also to fail faster we’re going to do email drops. I submitted a whole bunch of subject lines this morning for the exact same email. We’re just testing subject
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lines with the goal being, if we can get a bump, if one of those can stand out more than the others, then we’ll stick them on banner creative, and if those results stay consistent, then we’ll amend the VSL copy. Greg: We do the same, but we also do it with testing different messaging on Facebook ads, or Google ads if we’re sending it to a Google compliant page. One of the things I’ve been doing with Google lately to drive traffic to somewhere that you couldn’t normally, say for example, like a Bing style landing page which has got beautiful imagery and just the one primary course of action – what I’ll do is make it the second logical page on a site. So then we send Google traffic directly then to the home page and have like a slider at the top with a really prominent call to action to take them to the non Google Compliant landing page where I want them to go. Then using Clicktale I’ll figure out exactly what’s going on to make sure that they are clicking that and go over to the landing page. So I can then
send Google traffic to non-Google compliant landing pages by effectively making the non-Google compliant landing page one step away from where I’m sending the traffic. Obviously you get some wastage. It’s not as good as the media buys when you’re buying traffic on Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) etc when they really don’t care what sort of landing page that you’re sending it to. Alexi: What we do is we look at is the conversion rate on the sales page. Ultimately that’s what separates the results. But until we have hard and fast numbers there’s a whole bunch of analytical things that we do, like assessing time on page, analysing the video heat maps in Wistia. We use Wistia as the video player so that we can see where the drop points are and where the replay points are. For the most part we have no player controls, but for tests we also put on player controls so the replay points can jump out at me as well.
Wistia.com
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If you treat every single campaign as a test you eventually get to the point where you hit on a really big winning campaign. All it takes is one big winning campaign to make a stack load of money. This is what separates those who do really well from those that just plod along.
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These are all things that we do now do to really assess what’s working and what’s not working on the page. So if need to improve the Video Sales Letter we can improve it just by editing the drop-off points. I bumped engagement by 20%. Very quickly just by analysing drop-off points in Wistia. Depending on what you’re selling, that could really make a difference to your bottom line. If you’ve got a lot of traffic and you’ve got some good margins, you’ve got some good numbers to start with, a 20% increase in engagement. Wow!
One of your strengths is that ability to really nail the ‘big idea’ for the client, or for any market that you’re going in to. What goes through your thought processes when you’re trying to nail the sophisticated investor that’s agreed to subscribe to ‘big idea’? a magazine about property Investing. So our messaging tends to be somewhat more sophisticated Alexi: The first step always is understanding the and specific then if we do Google AdWords. Google ‘Avatar’. Avatar means your ideal target prospect. AdWords traffic is less sophisticated usually, not It’s really getting to the mind of your target maralways, depending on the key word and if it’s a ket and finding out where they are: long tail and so forth, but if we’re just talking in • What are their issues? general terms here Google AdWords traffic is less • What are their desires? sophisticated than targeted EDM traffic. Traffic on • What are their fears? “junk related sites” is even less sophisticated, yet • What are their frustrations? again, than AdWords. So that all influences what I • What’s going on in the media that relates to put in the messaging. them? • How is that affecting their perceptions? When it’s more sophisticated we get very, very • What bias is that leading to? specific. We start to assume prior knowledge. Really understanding where they’re at. That is the first point. So basically a lot of the work to do with coming up with a big theme is related to research and understanding your market. If you really get where your market is at then you can come up with a lot of the creative ideas quite easily and accurately.
I wrote a campaign for a client in the states and the product was for a vision supplement. After we tested it we found that my copy got a 40% lift on the control, which is a massive lift. The sub-heads actually mentioned nutrients that I knew our audience had tried before. Now, because I knew our audience, for that particular message and was quite sophisticated I could safely put that in a subhead of the messaging.
That then ties in with lead generation. Would Whereas if we were targeting very general trafyou then put out some kind of lead magnet that fic, people that are not too familiar with the viis related to those messages that you wanted to sion supplements, mentioning any of that stuff in test from your big idea planning? a headline is just going to confuse them – because it’s all new to them. So you would need to lead Alexi: Yes, exactly. But we take it a level further with messages such as “How to get rid of blurry by getting very specific, depending on lead source. vision without needing glasses” or “How to get Like for example, electronic direct mail (EDM) for clearer vision in three easy steps” etc. the readers of property magazines. That is quite a internet marketing magazine april 2013
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Greg: Yes, very clever. So you’re catering message based on the sophistication of the market or the traffic source where they’ve come from, which is a whole degree more sophisticated than certainly most people think about.
program, or an event in those price points that gets viable. So the phone is one big rock.
Another one is certainly Webinars. To get people to act sooner, create an event. And one of the easiest events to create is a Webinar. Now, What about now taking them again it doesn’t work for all circumfrom leads to sales, because get- stances, but it’s pretty robust. If ting leads is one thing and sales you’re selling a relatively low priced is another. What’s your thoughts product you can definitely set up an on most effective ways of taking automated webinar sequence – and someone from a free trial, or lead for some markets that works really magnet to a paying customer? well. Other markets where most of the people in that market are hip to it, they know what you’re up to. Also I’m a big fan of video sales letters. I think for leverage they’re pretty hard to go past.
Alexi: There’s so many different ways to go about it, but I’ll give you the stuff that is just spectacular where situations apply – like getting people onto a phone as soon as possible. If you’ve got the pricing where you’re selling a somewhat bigger ticket item – getting people on to a phone and pre-qualifying them and again set an appointment using time trade, maybe even paying a refundable deposit of X dollars so they show up to the appointment – that is a massive opportunity.
I know you work with a certain type of client, not everyone is your ideal client – so, really who fits that mould? And also how can our readers and listeners find out more about you and where you are hanging out online? Alexi: The clients we work best with are the ones that are direct response savvy. Ideally doing at least seven figures in revenue. The really, really good ones are doing eight figures, or beyond. When we work with a client that’s doing eight figures and beyond, Wow - The amount of opportunity or potential that we’ve got with an eight figure and beyond business is monumental.
And if anybody wants to know more about us, there are two sites that It doesn’t work for all situations like, you can visit. The first one is the if you’re selling a $150 supplement, main consulting site. There’s loads you can’t get people on the phone, of content on there, videos, downyou can’t scale that, right. But if load reports, that’s MarketingBump. you’re selling a $450,000 property, or com. We’ve also got my blog. I write if you’re selling a $10,000 coaching a weekly article or so at MoreLeadprogram, or even a $5,000 coaching sAndCustomers.com
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WEBINARS
THE 4 KEYS TO A SUCCESSFUL AUTOMATED WEBINAR By Mare Jordanoski
New strategies to get more clients to your offer are great, but not when it comes at the expense of time every week updating and maintaining a system that is always fluid – Does this sound a little familiar to you? Automated webinars are a great solution and are quickly gaining popularity. However there are 4 main keys to their success. What’s the point of spending all the upfront time pulling it together, only to have it fall flat on its butt. Here are our top 4 keys to a successful automated webinar: KEY ONE: Drive traffic Driving traffic to your webinar is the single most important part of the process. In most cases, the lack of traffic driving strategies is the biggest failure amongst webinologists today (*A webinologist being a person that practices the art of webinars). Need some ways to drive traffic? PPC ads, opt-in on your website, joint venture partners, emails to your list, linked-in promotions, Facebook ads – I could go on, the ways are endless! KEY TWO: Get people to attend Once people sign up for your webinar – Who is to say that they will actually show up? Have a strategy that will make them tune in. My recommendation is to give them a few ‘teaser emails’ including all
the usual suspects – Benefit driven outcomes, testimonials and a sneak peak of some of the content. KEY THREE: Provide Massive Value – before, during and after the webinar
dience from the beginning – Make sure they are listening to you instead of writing emails, checking Facebook, shopping on EBay, updating twitter or the multitude of other things they could be doing.
B – Big, Bold Benefits What will they learn by the end There is an art of persuasion that of the webinar? List these as you all good webinologists follow. It’s would in a sales letter: Benefit, not as easy as just getting on the benefit, benefit! webinar, talking about something and then flogging your stuff. Here I – Irresistible Reasons Why is the way that we recommend Why should they stick around to you structure your talking using the end? Tell them. In plain Engour “WebinarNOW” system (I love lish. Again, you want to hit them a good acronym!): with benefit, benefit, benefit! N – Nice To meet You This is where you get to build rapport with the attendee as if you were one-on-one. Show them how you became an expert in the field and how you know exactly how they feel (depending on the topic area!) A – A Journey To Remember This is where you take them on W – Wild, WOW Headline a journey with your content. You Captureyour audience with your teach them exactly what you headline – For one of our clients promised them in the beginning. who was offering real estate But…and a big But…you don’t training, the headline was: “How want to entirely scratch their itch. we went from $0 to $750,000 in This takes around 70% of the we18 months with no sales experi- binar and is very important that ence”. That made the ears of the what you tell them leads them to real estate agents prick up, from the sale. No point in you teachthe moment the webinar began. ing them everything so they don’t need you! Teach them in a way E – Engaging Introduction that naturally makes them want Capture the attention of the au- to take the next step with you. internet marketing magazine april 2013
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R – Results Desired This could also be called ‘creating the need for the solution’. This is where you say “There is only so much I can teach you in a 1 hour webinar‌â€? Future pace your attendees to see how they would feel once they have all the benefits that your product or service will give them. Make them see how you could change their lives or their business.
tell them how to purchase. Have a buy now button appear and make sure it works (simple problem but it happens more than most people think!)
N – Now it’s time for action Unveil your product – Show them what you have! I usually break down my products into 3 simple components as it makes it easier to understand, but you can choose to do this any way you like. Just keep it benefit driven and tight. No wiffle waffle here.
KEY FOUR: Follow Up Following from your webinar, there are a few lists you would have created. There are the people who attended and purchased; attended and didn’t purchase; did not attend. Each of these requires different follow up strategies and communication. Make sure you have this ready to roll before the webinar so it’s all ready to go at a click of the button, or even bet-
O – Offer: Inviting Instant Action Tell them your offer. Very simply
W – Wrap Up In A Positive Powerful Way End in a motivating fashion. Wrap up the webinar and congratulate those that have decided to take the next step with you.
ter, it’s sent automatically so you never have to think about it! All in all, the importance of an automated marketing strategy is to ensure that you leverage your time and set up your systems properly to ensure it’s on autopilot from day one. Follow these four keys and you’ll be on the road to success in no time. Dr. Tom Forfa & Mare Jordanoski
Entrepreneurs at heart, Dr Tom and Mare have created the world’s first ‘Made For You’ Webinar System to create webinars for your website or businesses. This allows you to automate your online marketing and sales. Not sure how to implement webinars into your marketing strategy? Check out their free webinar showing you step by step how to implement it at www.webinarsmadeforyou.com
How to Make Customers Love You - by Charging Higher Prices Marketing tests show that 1 out of 3 customers will buy if you do this.
Marketing strategist Alexi Neocleous revealing what he did to get Warren Buffett to invite him to Omaha.
Special video by marketing expert and copywriter Alexi Neocleous reveals the secret to getting more customers without competing on price. Also discover:
Being ranked #1 on Google is good for business, right? Wrong! Why it’s actually
How to tell which advertising methods work best. Google? Facebook? Referral marketing? Direct mail? Believe it or not, the answer is right there on your business card!
Magic words that cause 78% more people to read their emails. Amazing results collected after studying the results of 1 billion emails.
And much, much more. You’ll even discover why Warrren Buffett is in the video and how he invited Alexi to be his personal guest in Omaha (it’s a must see – a valuable marketing lesson for you!)
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For FREE, INSTANT access just Click Here. internet marketing magazine april 2013
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PROFIT CALENDAR
PLAN FOR PROFITS WITH A PROFIT CALENDAR By Ali Brown I hear it from almost 90% of my clients… “Ali, I’m working 10-to12-hour days to run my business. My husband and kids hardly see me, and I’m starting to burn out. What am I doing wrong?” When I dig a little further, I usually find that the sense of overwhelm is coming from the same source: These people haven’t identified their most profitable projects, and placed those tasks ABOVE everything else in their business priority list. In other words, they haven’t created a profit calendar. A profit calendar helps you establish what your most profitable projects are for the months ahead—so you can focus your time and energy into ONLY those tasks that will generate maximum income. By creating a profit calendar, you get clear on the tasks that are worth your time, and those that aren’t. It’s a powerful tool to help you stay focused and energized. And it WORKS.
ting on a hidden profit center— and that’s your existing inventory. Think of a service or product that sold well for you in the past that you can reintroduce to your market. If you offered VIP coaching days on the road, it might be something worth launching again. If there’s an old product that you want to get off your shelves, host a closeout sale. The idea is to put something out that will bring you income with minimal effort. It’s about leveraging what you’ve already done—not reinventing the wheel. Now obviously, re-launching an offering is going to take a bit of prep. But all you want to do for now is simply PLUG this launch date into your calendar.
too easy to let them get lost in your daily shuffle. STEP 3: Plan to improve on what you’ve already got. Go down the list of what you currently offer with a fine comb. What small improvement could you make to this one offering to improve your profits by just 5%? I’m not talking about big, sweeping improvements here—just minor tweaks that take very little time to implement. Here are a few examples: • Send an email to announce that you’re raising your rates, and why. • Start running new ads on your website or e-newsletter. • Add an upsell to your order page, or start bundling your products together. • Call three of your top referral sources and reconnect with them. • Add a Facebook share button to your sales pages
STEP 2: Plan to clear away the dead wood. Here, you want to take a look at anything that’s not propelling your business forward and set a date to end it. This could be ANYTHING you feel is draining your energy, money, time, etc. Maybe it’s a problem client you dread working In my Elevate online business with, a team member who isn’t training program, we show our pulling their weight, or that office members how to plan for prof- space you rent but never use. It its in these 5 easy steps. Here’s could even be as simple as cana quick peek at what we recom- celling your extra phone line and mend. Enjoy! fax if you’re mostly scanning and emailing docs to clients. STEP 1: Plan to re-launch past offerings, if any. The point is to schedule in a day The above examples could be imIf you’re an established business when you’ll take decisive action plemented within a week. Make a owner, you’re likely already sit- on these drains. Otherwise, it’s list of what you’ll take action on internet marketing magazine april 2013
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on within the next 7 days and plug this into your calendar.
growing. Your weekly e-newsletter, blog posts, networking events—these should all be plugged into your calendar. STEP 4: Plan to launch new offerings. Once you have a profit calendar in place, it will help If your creative juices are flowing and you have a you prioritize your daily and weekly tasks. You’ll brilliant idea for a new product, video series, live see what MUST get done from week to week, and workshop, coaching program, etc. set the ideal what can wait ‘til the next week or be delegated. launch dates into your calendar. You can plan launches around your vacations, kid’s activities—you can even plan for big expenditures. Remember, you don’t have to look very far to launch And that’s when you’ll hit that sweet spot as an ensomething that is NEW to your list. You can always trepreneur: turning your time into money, and your repackage something you already created to give off-time into fun! it a fresh spin. If you hosted a live retreat (and recorded it), make it available as a home-study program. If you hosted a 4-part teleseminar, turn it into Ali Brown is the voice for women’s entrepreneurial an e-book or a series of free reports. STEP 5: Plan for regular business-building activities. Don’t overlook the important recurring activities that you must do every week to keep your business
success. As founder and CEO of Ali International LLC, she has created a dynamic enterprise that is devoted to empowering women entrepreneurs around the world, and currently has over 50,000 members in her online and offline programs.
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EMAIL NEWSLETTERS
STOP DOING EMAIL NEWSLETTERS By Dale Beaumont Looks like my headline has grabbed your attention and you’ve started reading. There’s a powerful teaching point in that which I’ll get to in just a sec. For now let me get to the point, if you are distributing email newsletters stop doing them right now. Why? Well there is not just one reason why there are five and I’ve listed them below. 1. Attention Span First of all, I want you to think of the state people are in when they are checking and clearing there emails. You have micro seconds to grab there attention because all they are thinking in their heads is, how fast can I delete you. So what they would normally do is open, scroll how much there is to read and if it looks too much they’ll hit delete and move on. However if you can grab their attention with a short piece of inciting copy and have an attractive reason to click on a link, then get magically transported out of email mode (how fast can I delete you), to now I’m surfing the web. Once this happens people attentions spans goes from just a few seconds to a few minutes, which is now enough time to draw them into your message and offer. To prove my point have you ever been on email, clicked on a link and then two hours later saying to yourself, “What was I doing? Oh yeah that’s right I was clearing emails.” 2. Training Your Customers If you want to start selling more of your products and services online (and you should), you need to start training your customers to go to your website. Because a person can’t buy directly from a
HTML form inside an email, as it’s not a secure environment. So in the same way as Pavlov’s dogs if you want to sell products and services online you need to condition your customers to go to your website, because that is where all of the cool stuff and action happens. Plus, once there, it’s only one click away for your shopping cart and dollars in your bank. 3. Content for Google Next, lets talk about Google and this wonderful thing called the Google Algorithm, which is the process they use to rank your website compared to all of the other websites on the internet. Clearly your job is to get in favour with Google because the better your ranking, the more free traffic you get. Now when people produce email newsletters, all of this wonderful content gets traps in email and Google of course doesn’t see or index any of this content. So in the same way that, ‘today’s news is tomorrow’s chip paper’, once you create an email newsletter it benefits people on that day, but does nothing to serve you long term. internet marketing magazine april 2013
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What you should do instead is take all of that wonderful content that you have produced and add it to something called a ‘blog’ which sits on your website. Then you take each of those blog entries and optimise them for certain keywords that people are searching for. Google will then index these pages and they will become like spreading breadcrumbs spread across the web, which leads new people to your website. 4. Boosts Your Rankings To further expand on the point above, commonly known factors which affect Google’s Algorithm are having a keyword rich title tag, an effective meta description and back links coming from high Page Rank websites. However other factors include the number of pages on your website, the length of time people stay on your site and amount of return visitors.
your emails won’t get through. In addition, you can’t reliably embed videos or audio messages into massive broadcast emails. This is a major issue because videos are an excellent way to connect with an engage your customers. One way you can harness this medium is to start producing videos once a month covering the ‘latest news’ in your industry. Or start producing videos called ‘your questions answered’ where you take questions frequently asked by your customers and answer them. Another medium which is gaining significant momentum now is podcasting. This is where people can subscribe to receive audio messages from you. The benefit of this is your customers can access your content during times when their bodies are preoccupied but their minds are free. This could be driving in the car, working out in the gym or cleaning the house. In Summary... So to sum things up email newsletters are like a flash in the pan. They give you some immediate benefits but they do nothing for you longer term. So what should you do instead?
My advice is to write your emails like a postcard. This means keep them short and unintimidating. As for the content your job should be to ‘sell the sizzle not the steak’. In other words, write copy that is intriguing and enticing, but don’t give all By moving your content out of emails and onto you your secrets away. Share enough to get them inwebsite; you’re creating more pages on your web- terested then include a link that takes them out of site; you’re increasing the time that people stay on their email and onto your website. your site; and you’re ensuring that you have a lot of people are coming back to your site on a regular There you can proudly present your content, withbasis. out restrictions and you are creating content that will earn you points with Google and provide you The net affect of these factors means the value benefits for many years to come. and importance of your website increases and this will be reflected in better rankings, more traffic, more enquiries and ultimately more profits. Dale Beaumont
5. No Multi-Media Restrictions In email you are restricted to what you can say and do. If you use certain words like; ‘earn extra cash’, ‘compare rates’, ‘incredible deal’ or ‘lowest price’ - you might unintentionally trigger spam filters and
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is a 16 times best-selling author, Business Owner and Entrepreneur. Dale runs Australia’s leading business education and mastermind program called Business Blueprint. See Dale live at NewRulesOfBusiness.com.au
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SHOPPING CART ABANDONMENT
9 WAYS TO DECREASE SHOPPING CART ABANDONMENT ON YOUR ECOMMERCE WEBSITE By Russ Henneberry Any business selling online should learn how to optimize their shopping carts so that as many customers as possible will go through with their purchases. According to a computation on Baymard.com the average abandonment rate for online shopping carts is roughly 65.23% – an overwhelming majority. So what can business owners do to ensure that their customers end up checking out? These nine tips are a good way to start: 1. Provide free or flat shipping – and make it visible According to a Forrester study, 44% of online customers abandon their shopping carts because of high shipping costs. In the same vein, 22% abandon the carts because the seller did not mention shipping costs at all. A similar study from E-tailing Group also revealed that unconditional free shipping is the most important factor that leads customers to complete a purchase. In fact, 73% of respondents listed unconditional free shipping as “critical.” Apart from completing their initial purchase, customers are likely to buy more products because of free shipping. A study conducted by Compete stated that 93% of online buyers are encouraged to buy more products if free shipping is included. Customers who received free shipping also ended up being more satisfied than those who had to pay additional fees. Zappo’s shopping cart is a good example of this, emphasizing free shipping at the top of the website, as well as within the item display on your shopping cart.
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2. Eliminate hidden charges While having free shipping is important to customers, it is said that they also hate additional surprise charges as they are checking out. WebCredible UK’s 2010 survey indicates that 49% of online shoppers abandon their purchases because of hidden fees that are only revealed upon checkout. But if online shoppers dislike these surprise charges, how will business owners introduce additional variable charges such as sales tax, and specialized shipping? One way to do this is by adding a calculator or estimator within the shopping cart as early in the process as possible. In the below example, Best Buy’s shopping cart has a built-in sales tax calculator to avoid any additional surprise charges for customers.
3. Make cart items visible at all times It can be tricky (and therefore frustrating) for customers to keep backtracking and navigating a site just to find their existing shopping cart and check the items ready for purchase.
tion where, while viewing their cart, they can immediately check out and complete the purchase.
Though it’s simpler from a technical standpoint to create customer shopping carts on a separate page from your e-commerce store, customers need ready access to the cart regardless of the page they are on. In one report, Movies Unlimited allowed its online shoppers to see their existing cart via a dropdown menu, rather than navigating to a separate page. This led to an estimated decrease in cart abandonment of 4% to 8%. The below screenshot highlights this kind of feature in action. In Green Mountain Coffee’s example, the shopping cart shows up on the top right side of the screen whenever you add a new item to the cart. You can also easily make the cart viewable, if you want to check it as you’re shopping.
4. Reduce the number of pages involved in the checkout process The Webcredible report also mentioned that around 10% of respondents abandon their shopping cart because of a lengthy checkout process. These are most likely multi-page checkouts that keep presenting customers with additional forms, questions, or products. But what if these additional options are necessary? This is where a feature like “Express Checkout” comes in. In the below example, NameCheap provides customers with an “Express Checkout” op-
5. Have a wide variety of payment options The below example shows Walmart’s extensive list of payment options for their online store.
These include a variety of credit cards, third-party online payment services such as PayPal, and even Walmart rewards cards. Apart from these digital payment options, they also receive payments for online purchases via check. According to Walmart representative Cynthia Lin, check payments help them reach more customers. “Initial data show we’re reaching customers who have not bought from us before,” she said. 6. Remind customers of their abandoned carts Just because a customer abandoned their shopping cart, it doesn’t mean that the transaction is over. In the same report about Movies Unlimited, they stated a 1.5% rise in transactions just by sending out email campaigns to remind customers of their abandoned carts. As a result, customers either purchase the “abandoned” items, save them for later, or clear the cart. internet marketing magazine april 2013
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This move makes sense because the Forrester study also found that 41% of online shoppers who abandon their carts do so because they are unprepared to make the purchase. Therefore, online store owners should give customers the option to complete their purchase when they are ready.
count. This puts less pressure on the customer, knowing that he or she can complete the transaction without registering. While an email address is still required, creating an online Walmart account is not.
Apart from email reminders, another way to remind customers to return to abandoned carts is the “Save for Later” or “Wishlist” feature, which is prevalent in most online shopping carts from established retailers. Amazon is a leader in this department with its several “Wishlist” features. You can create multiple wishlists, add a “Wishlist Addon” for your browser so you can bookmark items from other websites, you can also jot items down and shop for them later. Also, if they see that you’ve browsed specific items or categories, they’ll send you fully customized emails reminding you to buy these items.
8. Have high-quality, interactive product images E-tailing’s 2011 Connected Consumer survey showed that the website features online shoppers found essential were high quality images, ability to see the item in their preferred colors or styles, alternate views of the item, and zoom functionality. The below example from Timbuk2 is a great example of this, since the pictures dominate the screen, can be viewed from different angles, and clearly display what the item will look like when you’ve customized it.
7. Ask the user to register an account after the sale, not before Webcredible’s study shows that 29% of online shoppers do not like proprietary registration forms during check out. In fact, one respondent stated that because of their existing number of passwords, they feel inconvenienced when yet another service requires them to create an account. But how can you track customer activity without inconveniencing your customers? Walmart is a great example of this. As you’re checking out, they give you 3 options for your account. You can login with your existing Walmart account, register now, or wait until later to create your own Walmart ac-
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9. Highlight your sales, discounts, and other specially priced items The same E-tailing survey showed that 62% of online shoppers think it’s important for an e-commerce website to have sections for specially priced
items. These include items on sale, coupon codes, and items being cleared from inventory. In the example here, sale items are prominent on Steve Madden’s website, including specially assigned sections for sale and clearance items.
As you can see, these tips aren’t just for improving conversion rates, they help make for a better customer experience as well. By applying even just a few of these tips to your shopping cart, you might see your sales increase, while providing a better, easier online shopping experience for your customers as well.
Russ Henneberry
a freelance content marketing and analytics professional. Russ is the managing editor of The Daily Egg and a fanatic about all things marketing. Check him out on Twitter.
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CHARITABLE GIVING
SPIKE HUMER, Entrepreneur & Business Growth Expert My goal is to raise $7,500.00 for victims of domestic violence & sexual assault I’m walking a mile in high heels to raise critical funds for WEAVE - a dedicated provider of services for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault since 1978. Be part of the solution to ending violence against women and take the “next step” by supporting the Walk A Mile in Her Shoes event. Make a quick and easy donation here. If you are in or plan to be in the Sacramento area, join me at the fun filled event festival on May 4, 2013! If you’d like to find our more about WEAVE, you can visit www.weaveinc.org
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WORDPRESS
HOW TO SPEED UP YOUR WORDPRESS SITE By Eugen Oprea Is your blog slow?
sults despite all of your other online marketing efforts. And this can easily lead to less traffic, which Do you want to improve the experience for readers? then translates to lost subscribers and customers for your business. In this world of instant gratification, speed of content delivery really can impact your business. Here are some simple steps to help you improve the speed of your WordPress site. Keep reading to discover ways to increase the speed of your website. Start With the Basics Why Website Speed Is Important First impressions matter. One way to see how fast your website is loading is to use Pingdom.
With Pingdom, you identify what areas of a web page are fast, slow or too big, what best practices you’re not following and so on.
When new visitors come to your site, the first thing they notice is the load speed and then the design. Even if you have a fantastic website, if your page doesn’t load fast enough, visitors might leave before they see your website design. In addition to this, Google strives to deliver the best search results, so they put a great value on website loading speeds. This means that if your site does not load fast enough, you may lose ranking in Google search re-
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Here’s a short summary of the basics you need to know about how to increase your WordPress site speed. • Keep the number of WordPress plugins you use to a minimum. A high number of plugins adds an overhead to your blog and slows your website speed. Carefully choose your plugins and only use the ones you really need for your website.
Remove any plugins that you don’t use or that you can easily replace with a code snippet
• Delete spam comments. Another practice that slows the speed of your website is keeping thousands of spam comments in your database. Remember to regularly delete spam comments from your database.
Remove all spam comments when they get to a 3- to 4-figure number. All you have to do is just to click on the Empty Spam button.
• Delete post revisions. Just like spam com- Here are some providers you can look into: ments, copies of old post revisions make your • Synthesis database heavier and slow down the speed of • Page.ly your website. Be sure to delete your old post • WP Engine revisions. Install the Better Delete Revision plugin to remove the old revisions from your Each of these has different benefits, so check them posts and pages. to see which one resonates more with your business model and budget. Choose Your Theme Wisely Remove the old revisions from your posts and pages.
Get a Proper Hosting Provider WordPress is just like a car; it can run faster if you give it proper fuel.
Once you’ve looked into plugins and hosting providers, the next step is to look at thetheme you use for your WordPress site. First, I would recommend you choose not just a simple theme, but a framework for additional benefits to your blog, such as: • Improved speed • Built-in security enhancements • Basic search engine optimization • Beautiful designs When you choose a theme/framework, you should look at how often the framework is updated, how seriously they take security or what kinds of designs they can offer out of the box.
In order to work, WordPress needs specific resources, such as memory or central processing unit (CPU) on the server where it’s hosted. And sometimes those resources are not enough for it to function properly. This is often the case on shared hosting. So if you started your website using a shared account on a company like HostGator, Bluehost or Dreamhost, consider upgrading your hosting account as soon as you can afford it. You can get a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or dedicated server, but what might work best is managed WordPress hosting. You can set up and optimize your own server dedicated for your WordPress sites, like I do, but this takes time and a certain level of expertise.
Additionally, one really important aspect is which SEO features are included with your theme. To strengthen your SEO, it’s important to easily be able to add a custom title or custom meta description to your articles. Frameworks to consider are: Genesis Framework from StudioPress, Thesis, AppThemes, WooThemes or Headway Themes. Optimize Your Database In the basics mentioned above, you learned to delete your spam comments and post revisions. That is because they add a high overload on the database. The database is the place where everything about your WordPress site is stored and it’s different from the physical files, uploads, themes or plugins on the server. WordPress uses the database to store posts, pages, comments, settings and plugin information. Every time a page is loaded, it reads the database. If your database is bloated, the information can take longer to be found and displayed. internet marketing magazine april 2013
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This is the main reason why you need to optimize your database regularly, especially if you have a larger website. To do this, you can install the WP-DBManager plugin. This plugin helps you to back up, restore, repair and optimize your database.
Use the WP-DBManager to back up, optimize and repair your WordPress database. Once you install it, you’ll see a Database item on the left menu. First, back up the database from the Backup DB submenu.
Finally, it’s time to optimize the database from the Optimize DB submenu.
Once the Checking Database Status is completed, just press the Backup button to back up your WordPress database. Next, repair the database from the Repair DB submenu. To repair your database, just select all of your tables and click the Repair button. To repair your database, just select all of your tables and click the Repair button.
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To optimize your database, just select all of your tables and click the Optimize button. As you can see, this is easy to do. And if you want to avoid doing this manually, you can also schedule these tasks from the DB Options submenu.
If you need to save complex images that contain lots of colors, save them as JPG or 24-bit PNG.
You can use a simple image editor to save images in these formats, such as Paint.NET or more complex editors like GIMP or Photoshop. By using the proper format, you’ll reduce the size of your images. And when they’re downloaded by your visitors’ browsers, this operation will be much faster. This will increase your website load speed. Schedule the backup, optimization and repair of Use a Caching Plugin your database. Caching is a process that’s essentially like taking I personally back up the database every day, op- a picture of your content and providing it to your timize it every 3 days and repair it once a week. visitors without requesting it from the database You can follow this pattern too. But if you blog mul- each time. tiple times a day, I would recommend you schedule these more often. Optimize Images
WordPress is an entire mechanism and every time you load a page, lots of things happen on the back end.
It’s also important to know what types of images But when you use a caching plugin, this process gets simplified: your content is served from the cache you can use and when. without being generated over and over again. For example, if you have simple images such as illustrations or artwork, it’s recommended to use an 8-bit PNG. This makes your images smaller, which makes them faster to load on your website.
The best plugin you can use to cache your content is W3 Total Cache. It’s effective and simple to use.
For simple images, illustrations or artwork, use an 8-bit PNG format.
But if you have complex images with lots of colors, then JPG or 24-bit PNG is recommended. [Editor’s note: 24-bit PNG files are significantly larger than JPG files but are more visually stunning]. internet marketing magazine april 2013
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Install W3 Total Cache and activate Page Cache, Minify and Browser cache. You should also activate the preview mode and preview your site before activating your settings. There are some advanced techniques you can use here, but to start with, just install and activate it and leave the default options on. Deliver Your Content Through a Content Delivery Network A content delivery network (CDN) helps to deliver your content, images and also CSS& JavaScript files from different locations across the globe. Your content is served from the location that is closest to your visitors. So, if your visitor is from Europe, for example, then your content will come from a server in Europe.
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A CDN saves your bandwidth and visitors will experience faster loading speed. You can get a free CDN from your hosting provider or you can set one up yourself using Amazon CloudFront and the W3 Total Cache plugin mentioned above. This will require more technical skills. Your Turn Be sure to follow these steps to improve the loading speed of your WordPress website and improve the experience people have when visiting your site. Eugen Oprea helps you convert more traffic into loyal customers using proven techniques that grow your business. Get his Google Analytics course for free to learn more and check his new WordPress plugin Elevatr.
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CUSTOMER RETENTION
BARKBOX’S ROAD TO 20,000 CUSTOMERS AND 95% RETENTION By Alyssa Karas In a city populated by purse dogs, Matt Meeker found New York’s pet stores to be lacking in products for Hugo, his energetic, 100-lb. Great Dane puppy. “I was very obsessed with spoiling him,” Meeker says, but finding toys and treats for a dog of Hugo’s size wasn’t easy. Starting BarkBox –a subscription-based service that delivers boxes of goodies to dogs and their owners once a month–was Meeker’s solution. He let other dog-lovers in on it too–thousands of others, in fact. Meeker co-founded BarkBox with Henrik Werdelin and Carly Strife, both veterans of the startup scene, and the service launched in early 2012. “We just wanted to help dog parents who are obsessed with their dogs discover the newest toys and treats and bones for their dogs and provide it to them on a monthly basis,” Meeker says. In a little under a year, the company has amassed more than 20,000 customers, Meeker says. And, event better, Meeker says the company has managed to retain them at a steady rate of 93 to 95 percent for the first year. In fact, one of their biggest problems has been underestimating growth. “We had a stretch goal and we raised the money in June of this year,” Meeker says. “The story we were telling the investors was that our goal for the year was to end with 8,000 customers, and the stretch goal was 10,000. And we really thought 10,000 was not possible.” But they’ve doubled that, and now they’re concentrating on building a fun, edgy, irreverent and sometimes inappropriate brand, he says. “We don’t call anything marketing,” Meeker says. “We call it customer acquisition or brand building, so we’ve put a lot of emphasis on both. We’ve taken a lot of time to be thoughtful about our brand and create a narrative around it.”
BarkBox founders Henrik Werdelin, Carly Strife, and Matt Meeker
At the heart of BarkBox is the idea that a dog is a member of the family. “We talk a lot about how our customers are dog parents,” Meeker says. “We see that everywhere. We see that with the people we interact with on Facebook, commenting on everything we post, and people who write in or call in to support with questions. They all fall into this profile for sure.”
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nose through the toys and treats. “They actually translate really well into new people discovering it and purchasing, and so now we’re a little more systematic about identifying people who do that.”
which is the most expensive, and if they don’t renew, they aren’t chased down. “We actually don’t put a lot of emphasis on reaching out to them and trying to move them into a different plan because it’s such a small group,” Meeker says. Because retention BarkBox.com The team recently launched a rates for other packages are so Because BarkBox knows its cus- BarkBox mobile app, which allows high, it’s not worth the time for tomer base–women with dispos- customers to review and reorder a small team. able incomes, they tend to be 25- products, as well as check the to 35-year-old professionals with status of their boxes. “But you In the future, Meeker and the no children, or 45- to 55-year old really can’t do much with it un- BarkBox team plan on expanding empty nesters–its founders have less you’re a subscriber,” Meeker the products and services they been able to tailor the business says. “So it’s to add more value offer. Currently three varietto their audience’s wants and there, to give people one more ies of boxes go out each month: needs, and interact with them in way of discovering the brand and Ones for small, medium and as many ways as possible. interacting with it.” large dogs. Meeker said he hopes to address dogs’ needs not just “Our approach there over 2012 On the other hand, they focus based on size, but in categories has been to try as many things their energy where it matters. like age, geography and behavas we can as fast as we can and When their retargeting service ior. Next year, six varieties of see what works,” Meeker says. wasn’t bringing them the results boxes will be sent out in January, “And when we find channels they wanted, “We were spend- 12 will go out in February, and in that work, we go very heavy on ing hundreds of dollars per cus- March they’ll expand to 18. Yearthose.” tomer,” Meeker says, they opted long subscriptions are on their to switch to Perfect Audience’s way too. For example, deal sites like services, which has been “super, Groupon and Fab have proved to super successful,” he says. But behind everything, BarkBox’s be effective for bringing in big commitment is to its subscribers, groups of customers to BarkBox and–especially–to dogs. Ten perover a short period of time, and cent of every subscription goes the company’s referral program to a shelter or rescue. is popular too. Customers earn a free box for every new subscrib“It’s really not a technology comer they refer. “We actually have pany,” Meeker says. “We think of one woman who has now earned it as a brand company, where it’s over 24 years of free BarkBox,” a brand serving a particular auhe says. “She’ll be with us for dience of people and doing that awhile.” PerfectAudience.com every which way possible into Sometimes they’re surprised at what works. “One thing we kinda stumbled into is people love to do these unboxings and put it on YouTube,” Meeker says. The Internet is filled with home videos of happy customers gleefully describing the contents of this month’s BarkBox while their dogs
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That includes focusing their energy on certain groups of subscribers too. Customers can purchase monthly, quarterly or half-year subscriptions, with the halfyear plan being the best value. Only three percent of customers purchase the monthly package,
the future.”
Perfect Audience
is the widest-used Facebook retargeting platform. Perfect Audience is the fastest and easiest way to retarget lost web site visitors on Facebook and bring them back to convert. Follow PerfectAudience in Twitter.
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GOOGLE GLASS
GOOGLE UNVEILS FIRST LOOK AT GOOGLE GLASS By Greg Cassar
In the last few weeks Google has unveiled its first Check out the video below to get a feel for how look at its new wearable technology that is still in Google Glass will be used in the future in everyday prototype called Google Glass. Google’s aim for situations. this product is to have it available to the public at the end of 2013.
Here’s how it looks:
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Here’s the official images from Google explaining what is does:
This technology is potentially as big a technology game changer as the iPhone when it first came out. The uses for the technology are near limitless, especially if it is opened up to App developers like the current Android Operating system. Who knows how it will affect your life in the years to come… a surgeon operating using it, you navigating the streets of New York with a map app, or using glass to film your childs birthday party. It’s a game changer… of that there is little doubt. * Images and videos courtesy of Google at http:// www.google.com/glass/start
Greg Cassar
is Australia’s leading Internet Marketing Strategist. With InternetMarketingDoneForYou.com Greg & his team provide traffic, development and conversion optimization services for medium to large businesses, enterprises & eCommerce stores looking for serious growth online. You can follow Greg’s latest updates by subscribing to Internet Marketing Magazine at InternetMarketingMag.net for the new members area and the latest issue updates.
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