Internet Marketing Magazine September 2014

SEPTEMBER 2014

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> 2014 WEB DESIGN TRENDS P25

> TWITTER BEST PRACTICES P29

> AVOID THESE TOP SOCIAL MEDIA BLUNDERS P10

> FACEBOOK ROI PROCESS

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> HOW TO ACQUIRE CUSTOMERS FOR JUST $1.25 P19

COVER STORY: MASTER MINDSET TO MASTER MARKETING

BRET THOMSON >> THE ORIGINAL AND BEST INTERNET MARKETING MAGAZINE DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR THE IPAD, KINDLE FIRE, ANDROID AND THE WEB

MEET OUR EXPERT PANEL Stuart Davidson

is a freelance social and digital marketer from London, UK. Stuart blogs at StuartJDavidson.com, where he shares his marketing experiences from working with over 50 businesses. He is the author of How to Win in Social Media and cofounded Thinking Forwards, a web design and development company.

Read his article on Social Media Manager Blunders on PAGE 10

Keith Krance

is a world-famous Facebook advertising expert. Keith is currently co-authoring “The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising” with Perry Marshall. Keith runs the agency Dominate Web Media to help businesses to effectively use Facebook advertising & other social media marketing to grow their businesses and their brand.

Read his article on Facebook ROI Process on PAGE 14

Chris Brisson

is the CoFounder & CEO of Call Loop and Automize. Chris brings over 10 years experience of online digital at 19 out of his college apartment, which was later acquired by a private investor.

Read his article on Customer Acquisition on PAGE 19

CONTENTS

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1Bret

Thomson talks about mindset and marketing

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1Top 10 Social Media Manager Blunders and How to Avoid Them

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1The

9 Step Facebook Process For Success and Maximum ROI

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1Learn

How To Acquire Customers for Just $1.25

Fuze is a Miami Digital Agency providing strategic and integrated Website Design & Development, Online Marketing and Mobile Solutions. Fuze looking to take their online businesses to the next level. Connect with Fuze via Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Read the article on Top Web Design Trends For 2014 on PAGE 25

Mark Schaefer

is a globally-recognized blogger, speaker, educator, business consultant, and author who blogs at {grow} – one of the top marketing blogs of the world. He teaches graduate marketing classes at Rutgers University and has written four best-selling books including The Tao of Twitter (the best-selling book on Twitter in the world) and ,which was named one of the top business titles of the year by the American Library Association. His latest book is called Social Media Explained: Untangling the World’s Most Misunderstood Business Trend.

Read his article on Twitter Best Practices on PAGE 29

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25

1Discover

the Best Practices For Top Web Design Trends For 2014

29

lKnow

the 3 Twitter Best Practices That Unlock Business Success

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

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elcome to this August issue of Internet Marketing Magazine.

This issue we have a big focus on mastering mindset and marketing with the feature interview with Bret Thomson. This information is very timely as I’ve just got back from the Tony Robbins ‘Unleash the Power Within’ event where Tony was quoted as saying that “Success is 80% mindset and 20% strategy and tactics”. With this being said we’ll put more emphasis on mindset in the upcoming issues of Internet Marketing Magazine. audio interview with Bret Thomson here. It’s got many sections in it that didn’t make the print version of this publication. For those

with iTunes the Podcast version may be more convenient.

We are testing and measuring a whole series of Marketing Funnel Optimization at the moment. We’ll share Digital Marketing Summit which I’m running, and also in future issues following that event.

I was recently asked to do the foreword for a rising star Entrepreneur Dr Raymond Loh with his book ‘Passive Income Riches Internet’ – check it out if you want a great summary of the many different Internet business monetisation models and what works best. It’s got some seriously clever contributors also.

If you haven’t got access to the member’s area please feel free to do at http://internetmarketingmag.net/ become-member/ (it’s free).

Our Google Play App is now live and working well. It gets updated roughly one day after the Apple Newsstand issue. So please feel free to check it out if you are on Android. We are working on a way to make it get automatically updated the same day as Apple Newsstand, so I’ll let you know if that comes off.

A special thanks to those who have left reviews 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 review that would be greatly appreciated (click ‘view in iTunes’ then scroll down and click ‘write a review’, thanks :).

Your Bonus Training: Send us a screenshot of your review in iTunes or Google Play (info@ internetmarketingmag.net) and we will send you some great Internet Marketing Training resources.

Regards,

Greg Cassar

Internet Marketing Strategist & Editor – Internet Marketing Magazine

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EXPERT INTERVIEW

ALL ABOUT BRET THOMSON • Bret is an industry leading emotional direct response marketer with a very strong background in copywriting.

• Over many years Bret has evolved from strength to strength to become one of the foremost direct response marketers in the country, with a long trail of success behind him both online • Bret is an author, speaker and coach.

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“

This might shock some people, but I believe every single person believes they are not good enough in some way, and that holds them back.

“

> COVER STORY:

> COVER STORY:

EXPERT INTERVIEW

BRET THOMSON MASTER MINDSET TO MASTER MARKETING An Interview by Internet Marketing Strategist Greg Cassar Bret, your mindset has evolved so much over recent years. What have been some of your big learnings in that space?

Bret: That’s probably the best question you could ask. It’s funny, I do a lot of consulting now and people come to me for ‘the big idea’ – they want the strategy. I know from my own experience, plus from studying the greats, that mindset shift. The strategy comes second.

A lot of people don’t want to hear that, but if I look at my life and I look at the pivotal points where I have had a spike of success, it has always been due to a mindset shift.

For most people, it’s a daily thing. They don’t believe they are good enough in some way.

Once I understood that I thought, “Well, that’s an area that I will constantly work on.”

It’s like Einstein said, “You can’t solve a problem in the same state of mind where it was created.” So you’ve got to raise your mind to a whole new level. So as much as I have been so passionate about marketing, mindset has been huge for me.

Jim Rohn once said “If you focus on your work or your craft you will make a good salary, but if you focus on your personal development you will make a fortune”.

Here’s what I have found out. This might shock some people, but I believe every single person believes they are not good enough in some way, and that holds them back.

People who are having limited or capped success have generally got a barrier. There are some exceptions. The exceptions are the people that have a crazy high level of desire that makes them unstoppable.

Greg: I agree 100%. I just got back from Tony Robbins ‘Unleash The Power Within’. Tony was saying that ‘Success is 80% mindset and 20% strategy and tactics’.

You work with a lot of business owners, marketers and entrepreneurs. What other mindset stuff do you see really holds people back?

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> COVER STORY:

EXPERT INTERVIEW

Bret: I believe people buy into the lie that they are overwhelmed and they haven’t got time to do things. What I have found is people never have a time problem, they have a priority problem.

hand up for 60%. I knew I could do more. I just had to be smarter about it.

A quick story - I have always had the reputation in my family, friends and industry that I am a hard worker. Everything I do I work very, very hard.

Following that moment I changed. I now outwork my competition in smarter ways and build up worth for myself. I now generally start at 3 a.m. I go for a walk and do a little bit of a mantra and give gratitude, and visualize what it’s like having it, as if I have already experienced it.

But I have noticed the last couple of years I had a bit of a ceiling of my income. I was thinking, “Gosh, what else can I do? I’m working so hard.”

I just feel it emotionally, all through my body.

It’s not just a rehearsed thing. It’s something that I have got to wait until the feeling happens.

I went to a seminar recently and this guy came up on onstage and said, “I’m going at 120% and most people are going 60%”. He asked people to put up their hand and state how hard they are going. I put my hand up and said, “I’m

Then I hit the books and study and learn from the best. Then, I work, I write, and put it into action straight away.

Then he told me what he does. He’s saying he gets up at 3am in the morning and he studies and works, whereas his competitors get up at six or seven. He has already got a four hour start every day, and he just smashed them. I thought, “Wow, that’s different.”

Then he came out for a second session and he asked the same question. This time I put up my

I create time to think. A lot of people are so busy learning, learning, learning, that they don’t create space to think. I actually create a big gap in my time and thoughts to let the ideas come.

Back to the question of what’s holding business owners back? Number one is self worth.

Number two is their perception of time. I think most people think they have got a time problem. They are probably putting a lot of energy on it, but it’s in the wrong area. They could be doing smarter things and if they are attaching enough meaning to something, then You could be busy, but if all of a sudden your go to a mechanic. That’s just about prioritizing.

Greg: We 80/20 with everything that we do. I think that’s the reality in this time and age, especially if you have got a family and a business, there is always going to be more to

Bret teaching his son Kaleb the “Laptop Lifestyle”

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> COVER STORY:

EXPERT INTERVIEW

get done than you can do, so really just 80/20 it.

Another thing we do as well is the concept of ‘Eat That Frog’, which is based off of a book are the main important things that you really, really need to do today, building up a list of things drop off the back, then it doesn’t really matter so much because you hit the big ones.

One thing you said that really resonated with me was that concept of planning your time. For me I bundle or group my time. I have consult days where that is all I’m doing, for example, Tuesday and Thursday I have consults. But then Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I try to keep my diary free so that I can think and work strategically on projects that interest me. Grouping tasks together rather than just constantly swapping from one thing to another really works.

Bret and his bride Lynika Cruz (Author of Beggars CAN Be Choosers)

You work with a lot of businesses on their marketing makeovers. What is a marketing makeover?”

Bret: In recent years I’ve morphed from a copywriter to a strategist, and I help people with their complete marketing makeovers to help them with their mindset and marketing.

A big part of it is funnel design and creation for the marketing funnel. It’s also seminar newspaper ads, website overhauls, video scripts, email marketing campaigns and launch formulas.

It really all starts with getting their message That’s 101 marketing and it sounds boring and everyone is saying it, but no one is really, really nailing it.

uniqueness and transforming that into a way that’s really super attractive to their audience.

Greg: One important thing related to that is think, “Oh, yeah. I know that.” But often they haven’t actually gone through the exercise of mapping out who that person is; what drives them; what keeps them awake at night; and what they really, really want. That can really lead into what you were talking about of nailing the market message and ultimately giving them what the market really want.

Bret: Absolutely. Because they have heard it so often, they think it’s not the exciting part. They want to get to the strategy and they just miss the fundamentals.

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> COVER STORY:

EXPERT INTERVIEW

Greg: it, as if that will solve the problem. We always work on getting the conversion right, getting the average order value up and get the thing really paying for itself and then cranking the

We have got a saying “Run your winner long and cut your losers short”. We are never afraid to say, “Next.” If something is not working don’t get emotionally attached to it. Just move on.

On the Sales copy front - long copy versus short & what to use when. What has been your experience in this space?

Bret: A lot of people who don’t like long copy base their decision on their own thought process of “I’m never going to read that because I hate it everyone else hates it.”

But when you write your message, you write for the hungry audience. You don’t write to please all the rest of the people who are never going

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to buy anyway.

In order for the hungry audience to make a buying decision they have got a number of boxes in their mind they have got to tick and a number of objections to overcome before they whip out the credit card.

So if you pull up your copy too short before they have ticked all the boxes, then you have just missed a sale. One objection missed is a sale missed.

So when people say, “Well, how long does it have to be?” - It has got to be as long as it takes to overcome all the objections and hit all the hot buttons.

visiting: • BretThomson.com • MarketingMakeoverHQ.com and • CopySniper.com IMM

Ari Galper

Ben Bradshaw

Scott Bywater

James Schramko

Greg Cassar

Matt Clarkson

David Jenyns

Matt Oxley

Craig Ford

OUR GUARANTEE YOU ARE 100% SATISFIED OR GET YOUR MONEY BACK internet marketing magazine september 2014

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SOCIAL MEDIA

TOP 10 SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER BLUNDERS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

By Stuart Davidson #1: Not Using A Skilled And Dedicated Social Media Manager When you decide to hire a social media manager for your social marketing campaigns, you need someone with experience, knowledge and skills. Hiring someone without this could lead to your performance suffering and even as far as being banned or having serious reputational repercussions.

Rogue or newbie social media managers could buy fake likes or followers to skew metrics in their favour, or spam other people with business messaging. You just never know unless

S

ome social media manager blunders are “natural” – happening while operating with a lack of knowledge and understanding.

before considering to hire or outsource a dedicated social media marketer.

Some happen even though a social media manager knows their doing it, usually due to a lack of effort or care.

Then there are some social media manager blunders that are just comical that some people continually fall into. These are usually the most avoidable.

It’s time to learn from these mistakes and to start using your social media presence effectively at all times. Below are the 10 most common social media manager blunders and the best ways to avoid them. Have a read and let me know which you think falls into each of the three categories of mistake.

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#2: Not Using The Right Tools Like any job, your social media manager needs the right tools. One of the biggest social media manager blunders is trying to make do with just the bare basics. Some of the essential areas

> of social media where tools will be needed include listening, monitoring, measurement, management and marketing.

#3: Expecting Reciprocation You see a post from someone else, so retweet it or share it on your Facebook page. Now you expect that person to reciprocate and share one of your posts. That is one of the worst social media manager blunders you will make.

useful or engaging, and not because you’ve your posts, get to know them and engage effectively while creating great content. Make yourself known in a good way, and you will eventually see it pay off.

SOCIAL MEDIA

it right, and the best way to do that is apologise for failing to meet expectations.

#6: Communicating In Bulk When Personal Is Better There are times that bulk communication is needed. However, there are also times that personal communication is better. This shows customers or your general followers that you’re

Don’t alienate people by cutting corners and responding to different people at once when it’s inappropriate. Two examples that come to mind include sending emails to multiple people, or a writing a generic response on Twitter and including multiple handles.

#4: Being Unresponsive Social media is about being sociable. Too many businesses leave questions or queries piling up on their feeds or pages, with the idea they will get back to them later. That later never comes, and you look like you’re ignoring people.

Nothing stops in social media so make sure you are responsive and show that you do indeed want their business. This may even mean 24 hour coverage for larger businesses.

Why? Simply – because it’s good business and ultimately worthwhile.

#5: Negative Responses To Complaints Or Bad Reviews You can’t please everyone all the time. While you try to do that, there will be unhappy customers and bad reviews. Don’t fall into the trap of the social media manager blunders that involve responding negatively or attacking unhappy customers. You want to try and make

#7: Coming Across As Spammy Watch out for looking spammy, whether it’s through messages or in your newsfeed. People don’t want to see update after update of your products on sale. They want engaging and interesting content. Share others’ updates and use your social media time to communicate with your followers and engage in relevant discussions.

#8: Telling Lies/Skewing The Truth One of the biggest social media manager

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SOCIAL MEDIA blunders that will turn people off is telling lies. Skewing the truth is just as bad. This involves phrases like say this” or “we’ve never had this complaint before.”

It makes the customer think that they are partially to blame, even though you know it is a common occurrence. The customers common problems, and they will walk away.

I say this often but reputation is hard to gain and easy to lose. Don’t give it away by being untruthful and letting yourself and your business down.

#10: Not Building Or Developing Knowledge Or Skills People often don’t realise that they’re making this one of the 10 social media manager blunders. If you’re not developing or building on your knowledge or skills, you end up stagnant.

There is always something new to learn, and standing still will mean you’re not progressing.

Keep investing in yourself and continually look for ways to improve what you do. Anything less is just not acceptable.

#9: Plagiarising Plagiarising is not just wrong; it is illegal. You could end up having to go to court and paying a hefty sum, depending on the type of content you use.

It is stealing, and your customers will not be does it. The question then is what else are you copying? It doesn’t matter if it is sales images for your products or uncited content on your blog. The best thing is to avoid this blunder completely by properly referencing any content you use.

Are You Making Any Of These Social Media Manager Blunders?

Your social media presence offers a look from the outside into your business. Make sure it’s looking good!

Customers want to see that you are responsive, friendly, and helpful at all times. They want to know that you are good at what you do and that you care about their concerns. Be sure to avoid the 10 most common social media manager blunders listed above and you will be on your way to doing so. IMM

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FACEBOOK

9 STEP FACEBOOK PROCESS FOR SUCCESS AND MAXIMUM ROI

By Keith Krance

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elcome to the training on the foundation

campaign. I’m going to walk you through my nine-step process to create a successful Facebook marketing campaign.

Step 1: Market Research Step one is the market research phase, the competitor analysis phase or, as we like to call it, the spying phase. This is what you want to do before you set up your ads. Before you do anything else, you want to get in and learn as much as you can about your existing audience, your potential target audience, and your competitors. All those types of things.

There are lots of great tools, like Follow. net, which is a great competitor analysis tool. Then you have tools like the Facebook Search, Facebook Audience Insights, Google, Google Trends, sites like SimilarWeb, Compete. com, and Quantcast.com. All those are great tools, and you’re going to use those to learn everything you can about your audience and people that like your competitor’s page, what other things do they like and what other types behavior do they do? Those types of things.

When we get into step six, which is all about creating your ad, we’re going to get deeper into the targeting and research targeting.

There’s a little bit of a redundancy here in step one because we’ll do it again in step six.

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Step 2: Lead Magnet When people are taking a Facebook advertising course, what they want to do is learn all the Facebook tricks and hacks, but they don’t’ realize that the most important part is the actual funnel: the process, the lead magnet, the landing page, the thank you page. All this other stuff is important.

“Create Your Ad” is step six. We have things that are a lot more important than the actual Facebook ads themselves. You have to get this stuff right. I can’t tell you how many calls I’ve had with new clients where it takes us a while before we start running ads, because I look at their offer, their landing page, their thank you page, and I know almost immediately whether it’s going to be successful or not. Usually I can tell that we have to change something up.

That’s why this training is so important, all the stuff in here that you’re going to learn.

The lead magnet is basically your ethical bribe.

It’s the reason somebody is going to click on an

> ad, and it’s the reason somebody may be going to give you their contact information, their e-mail address, or their credit card for a small purchase.

We like to use some kind of a lead magnet, or hook, to incentivize people to opt in. Then we use e-mail marketing and retargeting to nurture them along, and eventually bring them into our sales funnel to sell them the product or service.

FACEBOOK

Step 3: Landing Page Your landing page is the page they land on after they click on your ad. The sole purpose of the landing page is basically to get them to take one action. In most cases it’s to give you their contact information, maybe their name and their e-mail or phone number. The goal is to get them to do that. Once you can get them to give you their contact information, now you can use e-mail marketing, and retargeting content to educate them more.

date. We want to gather that lead and then, once we have that person in your database, we can deliver more value and education, and let them get to know us before we go ahead and try to sell to them. You don’t want to walk up someone in a bar, introduce yourself, and ask them to marry you, do you? You need to get to know them, eventually go out on a date together, then lots of dates, then get engaged, and then become married. It’s a process.

There’s nothing different with a Facebook marketing plan.

Facebook is social. You have to remember that.

People are not on Facebook searching for an answer or solution like they are on Google.

Great lead magnets are things like: • Checklists • Cheat sheets • Webinar registrations • Free video series • Free trials or demos of software • Local and educational events, like a free • Coupon or discount, like a buy-one-get-onefree offer for a restaurant.

Discounts and coupons are great for local businesses or live events, and then you can keep them as a long-term lifetime customer.

Or maybe on the next page after they opt in, you have a 10-20 minute video, or a webinar registration where you can educate them more on your product or service, and move them into the sale. The landing page is key.

LeadPages is one of my favorite tools in the world right now. It’s one of the biggest game changers in Facebook. Thanks to LeadPages, so many different businesses – both small and large – are way more successful because they can be nimble and agile. They can create fast landing pages that are proven to convert. They have so many different templates that are designed by marketers and designers all over the world, and only the best ones get inside LeadPages. It’s fast, easy, and you don’t need any graphic design or technical skills.

That’s basically what the landing page is for, and it’s very important.

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FACEBOOK Step 4: Thank You Page The thank you page is the page the visitor lands on immediately after they opt in to your landing page for your lead magnet. If it’s a purchase, then the thank you page is purchase.

We also call the thank you page the money page, or step two, or the next step after the landing page. So step one is your landing page, step two is your thank you page, and you may have step three as an upsell or cross sale.

There could be multiple steps after the landing page. The thank you page is the most common name for it.

This is a super important page. Like I said, it’s the money page. This is where you already have their contact information, they’ve already opted in, and now this is where you can deliver value and trust. This is also where you may have a 10, 15, 20-minute video to get them to take the next action, or to sell a product or service. The thank you page is really critical.

This is also where you’re going to put your conversion and remarketing codes, or Website Custom Audiences, which is basically Facebook’s version of remarketing. If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry, I have other training on that. Basically, in order to track conversions, you have to have the conversion

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pixel on the thank you page, not the landing page, because Facebook knows every click that lands on your landing page but the only ones that count as a conversion are the ones that land on the thank you page. That’s why we put our conversion pixels on that page. It’s really important for that.

We also want to have remarketing lists there so we have campaigns to target people who have already opted in but haven’t bought yet, and lots of different things like that.

Step 5: Facebook Post The next step in this nine-step process is the actual Facebook post itself. Like I said, the most critical part is having this process in place, and having a good place for them to go to. Now is where we start with the Facebook side of things.

If you want to get in the News Feed, which is the best real estate on Facebook, you’re going to have to start that ad as a Facebook post.

Then we amplify that with Facebook ads. You can create a post a few different ways, which I’ll go into in more depth in other videos, but you can either create your post right on your business Facebook page, then go into the Ad Manager to create an ad around that post, or you can actually create your post inside the Ad Manager itself. You’re a little bit limited inside the regular Ad Manager on text characters and stuff like that.

Or you can use the Power Editor to create a “dark post” or unpublished post, and that way you can run an ad to that post. In some cases, you can even make it so it doesn’t show up on your Facebook page itself, it only shows up in the News Feed for the audiences that you choose to put it in front of.

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FACEBOOK

Step 6: Create Your Ad Now what you’re going to do is either use the Ad Manager or the Power Editor to create an ad to amplify your post from Step 5.

little pockets that work best and take those pockets and start scaling out with those. That’s what we’d like to do.

You’re going to put that in front of your exact ideal target audience. You can place that right in their News Feed, or you can even have your post in the sidebar of the right column.

Step 8: E-mail Marketing The next step is to move e-mail marking to move people into taking action. As I said,

I have a lot of stuff in another video that is all about your target audience, baiting and budgeting, ad creating, and all of those types of things. I’m not going to cover that in this training.

Step 7: Optimize Your Campaign Once you get your ads up and running, you have to get into Facebook’s reporting tool – it’s an awesome reporting tool – and start digging

you meet somebody. It’s the introduction. You need to use e-mail to build that relationship, that friendship, and eventually turn them into a customer or client.

Step 9: Retargeting Steps eight and nine work simultaneously together. You can be using e-mail marketing at the same time as you’re retargeting your visitors.

working best: News Feed or sidebar. Find out which things are working best when it comes to mobile or desktop. Are your ads performing better on mobile, do you have a funnel that works well for mobile? Are you getting cheaper clicks on mobile or on desktop? In some cases, we get cheaper click on mobile, but we might get less conversions on mobile because our landing and thank you pages aren’t optimized for mobile. Always be thinking about those things.

A lot of times you’ll get cheaper clicks on mobile but if you don’t have your funnel set up right, or you’re trying to sell something on the thank you page, then you might be better off sticking to desktop. But the cool thing is out not only which ads are working best where,

female, etc.) and narrow down the interest

What’s retargeting? Retargeting is when somebody lands on your website, landing page, or your blog, and then leave that site and go back to another site, such as Facebook or a news site. Then they see a banner ad or a Facebook ad about your business that brings them back into your sales process.

Have you ever been to Amazon – or any big

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FACEBOOK e-commerce site – to buy a product, then you leave that site and see an ad for that product and wonder what the heck is that? That’s called retargeting or remarketing, and we can do that with Facebook. It’s one of the biggest impact things you can do to get conversions.

You’re going to be using e-mail marketing and retargeting to bring people back, to bring people that opted in but maybe didn’t buy yet, or to bring people that have been to your blog back to your landing page. All these types of things.

target audience, and then we have to use remarketing, content, and e-mail marketing to build that trust. To build that trust, you have to have this stuff in place, or you’ll never get Facebook to work for you. You have to

Stop “Just Getting By”... Master

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understand this, and once you do, it’s a good time. Once you do, you can now turn that into money.

Once you understand this process and put this in place, then all of this turns into a lot of

training modules on each one where you can go deep into each step.

The thing is, with technology these days – with things like lead pages, conversion tracking, and how easy it is to create videos – you can put this process together so much faster and with a smaller team than you ever thought possible.

It’s really powerful. I’m really excited.

Facebook.

IMM

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CUSTOMER ACQUISITION

WHAT DROPBOX TAUGHT ME ABOUT HOW TO ACQUIRE CUSTOMERS FOR JUST $1.25

By Chris Brisson

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et’s face it… Growing a business is hard work. It’s not always sunshine and rainbows

a business” is the hardest part.

Believe it or not, but Dropbox just a few years ago, before they became the world’s love child, was on their way to the dog-house, the deadzone, the huge pit of killed businesses because of one thing…

Well, not really born (it’s been around forever), just implemented in a very clever way so that Dropbox could acquire users and customers for literally pennies.

The scheme was simple: “For every friend you introduce to Dropbox, we’ll give you both 250 MB of bonus space up to a limit of 3 GB!”

The Cost of Customer Acquisition they tried every strategy under the sun to acquire users and customers for their brand new app.

They tried PPC, SEO, buying banners, and all of the “traditional” ways to grow their business.

Turns out, that their customer acquisition cost were sky high and running as high as $400 per customer.

“Sounds like a deal to me!” said millions and millions of people from around the entire planet.

Not bad if you’re selling a high ticket product or service, but when product is $9/mo ($97/ year), reality quickly sets in that you’ll go broke in no time.

And from that moment forward, Dropbox grew faster than Mark McGwire on steroids.

But, they weren’t the only one’s to implement this strategy.

So Plan B was in full effect.

And after sitting down with Sean Ellis, they came up with a plan.

And then their Refer-a-Friend strategy… was born!

“They Generated 10K New Signups By Doing WHAT?!”

Chances are, you’ve probably never heard of this company.

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CUSTOMER ACQUISITION A few years ago they were the Silicon Valley rage and “Hipsters” from all over the land

And in just 48 hours (like 2 days) they generated 10,000 brand spanking new users with a boring page like this…

That hook worked pretty well and netted them over 10K+ LEADS in two days.

Back then it was new. Today it’s everywhere.

And it’s everywhere because… IT STILL WORKS. Here’s another company that used the same strategy to go on and generate…

315,239 (and growing) Beta Signups RobinHood.com used this same “Dropbox Effect” strategy to build a pre-launch list of over 250,000 humans. WHOA!

Yes, seriously. Ten Thousand Leads.

Nothing fancy.

Nothing complicated.

Nothing that cost them 50% equity in their business either.

Then after you optin you get this…

A simple “curiosity” driven landing page sprinkled with the right PR and BOOM! The puppy goes viral.

Here’s their process…

After you opted in with your email, they gave you the option to share on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and created your own unique URL for you to share.

And the hook was…

Refer 3 friends to get EARLY ACCESS. Yes, folks. “Early Access.”

No download, no free money, no whiz bang free prize inside.

Just the ability to get in before the rest of the world does.

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Share along and get early access.

Sound familiar?

How about this one…

> “It Converts 50% Faster Than Paid Advertising”

CUSTOMER ACQUISITION

This simple “been done a million times” strategy drives us fresh-hot (sounds like a donut shop)

What does?

The CMO of Gilt Groupe said this…

Now before you copy Dropbox, Call Loop, Gilt Groupe, or the others guys strategy, you have to decide on which type of referral program will work best for YOUR business.

Types of Referral Programs So what the heck are they doing! difference between a “Referral Program” and an Well, as it turns out… they’re using… whatdya know…

The Dropbox Effect Anyhow, are you starting to see how freaking powerful this is?

A Referral Program is based on rewards or gifts. (i.e. get a report, pdf, video, mb’s for sharing) An

is based on cash money.

sales, or other actions they drive.

So I though to myself, “Heck! I want to do that!”

So after some ninja campaign building inside Infusionsoft and a few hours of testing – we had it working. We had built our own “Dropbox” referral system that’s completely self managed for our business.

Like Dropbox, ours is simple too.

As in the examples above, they are all focused on giving a “reward,” not cash, for incentivizing their users to share.

beast, but for now we’re solely focused on how to create a powerful referral program.

1. Rewards For New Users (ie: Leads) This is what we do for Call Loop. While Dropbox gives free space, we give free messages.

you’ll get 25 free messages.

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CUSTOMER ACQUISITION When someone refers a friend and they sign up, they get 25 free messages. The “retail cost” for us (if they actually use them) is $1.25 per user. (ie: 5¢/msg x 25 = $1.25)

webinar, PDF, product, or access to a new feature.

In actuality, our “real cost” is much less since we pay a wholesale rate for messages (it’s more like pennies per user).

We also don’t offer an unlimited amount of referrals and cap it at 500 free credits (or 20 referrals).

Or if you don’t have anything to give, you can always use the “Early Access” bribe.

This is exactly what Robinhood and Hipster did and it worked for them.

SIDENOTE: What do you think? Should we open up a larger cap?

HelloFax gives away free Faxes for each referral.

So what about you? Can you give away some for each referral?

If you can’t give something of value for EACH

3. Cash For Customers (AKA: Bills for Buyers) Now, this isn’t about turning every user into about rewarding each user with cash for their referral.

This is exactly what Gilt Groupe has done to grow from 15,000 users to well over 10M in less than a few years.

model.

The best part? It’s all performance based!

I call it…

Here’s their “Share Page”.

2. The Unlock Method This is what Frank Kern did a few years ago with his “Good Karma Machine.”

It was a simple bribe.

“Refer 3 friends and get Access to My Secret List-Getting Video” ($97 Value) So when you referred 3 people with your link you’d get an email to that video.

The results?

Oh, only 476 double optin leads… per day.

What’s pretty wild about Gilt’s strategy is that they’ll give you $25 for each referral when their

Once they reach the 3 referrals, you then UNLOCK access to that video, training series,

Did you read that?

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CUSTOMER ACQUISITION

ships.”

So in other words, the person will only receive the $25 when the order is placed, out the door, and when they become a REAL PAYING customer, not just a user, but a CUSTOMER. This means that their customer acquisition cost to acquire a warm, referred, high converting customer is quite literally, $25 bucks.

Not to mention, you can’t redeem the $25 for cash, but only for $25 Gilt dollars. Which is basically, money at a discount for Gilt because they just count it into the shipping cost.

So in actuality their acquisition costs are much lower.

Like Gilt Groupe they only issued the $25 to you when your referrals order shipped. You can do something similar.

Instead of building out of using a fancy piece of software, you could just sent out Amazon gift cards for each referral.

We don’t do this now with Call Loop, but we easily could give each referred “buyer” $100 in Call Loop credits. It’s really the same thing that Gilt does.

Ok, so you may be wondering, “Boy Chris, this all sounds great, but how the heck can you do this?”

We use Infusionsoft combined with some custom campaigns I created to make all of this happen automatically, but there are some other “off the shelf” referral program softwares out there.

I haven’t tested them, but hear some great things about ReferralCandy.com You may want to check them out. IMM

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WEB DESIGN TRENDS

BEST PRACTICES FOR TOP WEB DESIGN TRENDS FOR 2014

By Fuze

W

hile keeping up with Web Design trends keeps your site looking fresh and modern, popular design techniques must be strategically executed to ensure they are enhancing user experience and helping your online business grow.

Some of the hottest website design trends can cause more harm than good if not implemented with purpose and thoughtful intent. We’ve all seen sites that go overboard with fancy motion layouts that create clutter and chaos. Before getting trend-happy, step back and decide what is appropriate for your business and your customers.

How to Properly Implement the Top Web Design Trends for 2014 Flat Design

drop shadows and gradients, and takes on a minimalist approach to fonts, icons and other graphical elements.

perfect. Bold fonts and simple icons on a white background, for example, must consist of carefully chosen typefaces, crisp visual hierarchy and perfect spacing in between elements. When not executed properly, a experience.

Responsive Website Design Responsive design is a fairly new trend that requires a sharp learning curve for designers and developers. Since responsive websites are all-in-one solutions geared to provide optimized user experiences for all device types, elements like content, navigation and usability should be given extra care.

Boston Globe responsive website

The web design community has been greatly aesthetic. Flat design is devoid of things like

Content When planning a responsive site, it’s critical to

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WEB DESIGN TRENDS screen size, starting with mobile followed by tablet and desktop. For smaller device types, content hierarchy must be cleverly thought out, as you’ll have less room for important site messaging, calls to action and content you want users to engage with.

that guide people down the page. While it’s tempting to design a page that scrolls for 10 minutes (just because you can), you run the risk of creating such clutter and disarray that usability becomes obsolete.

Navigation Navigation menus typical of desktop sites do not work for mobile. Therefore, a mobilefriendly nav menu should be designed to accommodate small screens. The more categories and pages your site has, the more robust your menu will need to be.

Usability Only within the past several years have digital professionals begun to analyze user behavior on mobile devices. As mobile web usage increases, compelling ways to present content.

Before you embark on a responsive design project, it’s important to consider what you want to accomplish with mobile versions of your site. For example, tablets are very popular for online shopping and browsing content-rich sites. Mobile phones on the other hand are great for displaying visual content like photos out forms or completing multi-step functions.

You must serve content that matches both user intent and capabilities of each device.

Deep Scroll A deep scroll site throws out the now outdated “above the fold” rule, and allows content to be presented via a vertically scrolling interface.

The trend was a response to the popular scrolling action performed on mobile phones and tablets, and has shown to provide great value to users.

Two of the biggest mistakes made on deep scroll sites are providing too much content and not creating a “story” or series of hooks

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Startup Giraffe deep scroll website

The most effective way to design a deep scroll page is to create a series of sections that work together to create a narrative about your products or services. The page as a whole should be considered a brochure for your business, starting with an intro and ending with a payoff or call to action. For simple brochuretype websites, the entire site may consist of a single page. For more robust sites, the Homepage can be deep scroll while inner pages can be standard templates.

Startup Giraffe, featured in the above image,

> includes the following sections on their website: Introduction, Services, Projects, Team, Blog, FAQ and Contact. This setup presents a nice overview of their company in a visually compelling manner, without forcing users to bounce back and forth between inner pages.

WEB DESIGN TRENDS

overboard with effects that create confusion and detract from usability.

Parallax The parallax effect is one of the most trendy – and overused – web trends. Parallax refers to the overlapping of images and text that move over top of one another as a user scrolls. This creates the illusion of motion.

Rotating homepage banner with 16 slides

We’ve all seen over the top, seizure-inducing motion graphics that serve no tangible value for users. Every element on a website should help guide a user closer to conversion and design for design’s sake should be avoided at all costs.

Rotating banners with 27 slides and text effects that take 5 minutes to load are examples of things to stay away from.

Volkswagen deep scroll site (visit site)

There are several challenges with the parallax scroll effect. First, images need to be optimized for the web, or they may cause issues with page loading. Second, the design of overlapping elements must be executed with precision or the end result can be visually jarring. The rate at which elements move, be adjusted to provide smooth motion that is easy on the eyes and allows any included text to be easily read.

Motion Graphics Advances in front-end coding such as HTML5 and jQuery offer motion graphic capabilities that eliminate the need to rely on Flash, which is not compatible with Apple products. Motion graphics are effective when used appropriately; however, far too many designers are going

Current trends are shifting towards simplicity, as mobile optimization and user experience take center stage in the web industry. Use visual effects sparingly and always consider how they play a larger role in enhancing UX and driving conversions. IMM

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TWITTER

3 TWITTER BEST PRACTICES THAT UNLOCK BUSINESS SUCCESS

By Mark Schaefer

H

ere is one of the most common business inquiries I receive: “I am about to launch a (business/book/seminar) and want to use Twitter to do it. Can you help me?”

My answer is usually “yes … I can help,” but my advice is rather unsettling. Twitter probably won’t work to help your business unless you follow three best is enough to stop most people in their tracks.

Although it is certainly possible to have a shortterm business success on Twitter, it is not probable without months — or even Behind every case study there are three factors at work and these stepping stones are climbed only through a lot of preparation and effort.

Before we get into the details, I want to

DON’T require a lot of preparation, You can use it for market research, education, and customer service, for example, without the steps I am about to explain. But if you want to generate leads and SELL something some day, pay attention to the advice below.

1. The Network Strategy I have nearly 90,000 followers on Twitter and I go to great lengths to assure that they are real people, not spammers of inactive accounts.

If I sent out a tweet right now promoting my new book, how many people would actually buy it? Not very many. Why? Your Twitter audience is generally made up of “weak links.” These are people who are aware of you but probably won’t take a strong action like donate to a cause or buy something just because you ask.

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TWITTER Think of this like sales. You have to have a lot of contacts for any of them to turn into leads.

You have to have a lot of leads before they turn into a sales call. You have to make a lot actually buy from you.

Twitter is much the same way. If you have 2,000 followers, you are not going to sell 2,000 books, You might sell one!

You have to consistently and methodically build a relevant audience of “contacts” before you

wonderful people including mining Twitter lists, Advanced Twitter Search, Twitter chats, and even through Twitter’s advertising programs.

The single-best place to go for resources to build your network is Chapter 5 of the book The Tao of Twitter, which has more than 20 ideas. people, even if you only spend 20 minutes a day on this activity.

2. The Content Strategy

some disposition to be interested in you, you have to get on their radar screen and usually it is your CONTENT that leads to that awareness.

Content can come in many forms. Here are a few ideas about the types of content that can get people’s attention: Rich content — The most powerful content is original, “rich content” that provides depth and voice of authority. Generally speaking, rich content comes in the form of a blog, podcast or video series. It’s hard work providing this content on a consistent basis but this is the type of value that makes you stand out and create a deeper connections with these weak relationships. Linking tweets to your original and helpful content can spur people to learn more about you.

Content from others — If you do a good job surrounding yourself with a relevant audience, they will also be sending you links to wonderful content through their tweets each day. Re-tweeting others takes the burden compliments others when you acknowledge their good work. Re-tweeting is a superb way to get on somebody’s radar screen!

Contests and games — People love the opportunity to win prizes. Promoting a contest is a great way to create awareness, especially when combined with Twitter advertising.

So the idea behind sales and Twitter is to turn these weak links into stronger links that will lead to real business opportunities. Now that you have built up a list of people who will have

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Personal engagement — Show people your human side whenever possible, If you are tweeting as an individual, mention things going on in your life or tweet a photo now and then.

If you are tweeting under a corporate account, think about adding initials to the end of every tweet so people can know there is a real person behind the content.

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TWITTER

3. Consistent Engagement Social media is SOCIAL. It’s not very effective creating an audience without engaging with them or simply shipping content out there like an advertisement.

When I was starting out in business, I used to attend a lot of live, monthly networking meetings. It would take 4-5 months before people started to recognize me and get to know me. It might take six months before those connections led to a cup of coffee and a real business discussion.

In real life, we build meaningful relationships — strong links — through a series of engagements over a period of time, maybe even years. Networking on the web is the same way. It takes time, patience, and consistent engagement.

Look for opportunities to say hello to people online, to compliment them, to re-tweet something they provide that is exceptional. And always look for ways to actually MEET people in real life. That is the best way to convert those weak social media connections to strong relationships who can help you.

Managing expectations I can’t tell you how many people come to me thinking Twitter (or social media in general) is some miracle cure. It’s not. It CAN work, but you need to have realistic expectations about HOW it works and what it takes to get there.

through Twitter, but I can also tell that if you do the hard work, it’s worth it. Twitter — combined with rich content, a relevant audience and consistent engagement — has helped many people

I hope this perspective helps and that you’ll take a moment to share it across your networks as your own helpful content that connects with your relevant audience. After all, nothing says I love you like a re-tweet now and then! IMM

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